We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Hilda Lucia Estrella de Lev a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Hilda Lucia, thanks for joining us today. Are you happy as a creative professional? Do you sometimes wonder what it would be like to work for someone else?
I have been very blessed in my life. I have had different jobs from my different areas of knowledge. I did enjoy all of them. I am trying to be grateful for where I have been and where I am now.
Creative work usually brings challenges in trying to get the best out of you and your dancers. It is a work of love and very satisfying. I definitely feel I am in the place I should be.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
My name is Hilda Lucía Estrella de Lev, I was born and raised in México. I started dance, as many little kids, in a dance academy very early on. Like most elementary school in México, my school had a folklore dance club and I was a part of it. That was my first time dancing Mexican folklore, I was 8 years old. Since then, I have been in different school programs and dance groups, I also had professional dance studies at the National Institutes of Fine Arts in Monterrey, Mexico. I started to teach dance when I was 15 years old, by that time I had 7 years of dancing and performing experience. After that I did not stop neither dancing nor teaching and learning. As I grew older, I venture in other dance types, academic and social, so, I have some experience in ballet, contemporary, Latin rhythms, tango, and Polynesians.
I started teaching folklore in Atlanta one year after moving here in 2007. The next year Alma Mexicana was born. We started as a small group and we have gradually been growing till today.
I teach what I know – technique and the love for our culture, our music, our language. Trying to do our very best in what we do, entertaining, educating and sharing our Mexican cultural richness.
What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?
Be part of it. I believe sports and arts feed your soul. I know I would be a different person without art.
Try the arts, try to write, to draw, paint, dance, design, perform, play. Till people try and understand that it requires a lot of effort, passion and love to master it, they might appreciate more what we do.
I am convinced that a society involved in arts is a healthier society. Western society has separated brain and heart for many years, just recently with more studies on the field, have again bring the knowledge that emotions, health and body are all tight together. Arts bring forward your emotions in ways no other language can do, this language and communication goes deeper than words. Among other things it is a great healer.
You can always do more to bring the arts to the general public, ease access to it. For example, to have a free day a week in art museums and galleries. Bring performing arts to parks, bring copies of masterpieces to public spaces. Have more murals or poetry in buildings, posts, columns around the city. Have competitions in schools for choruses, and recite poetry.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
See my dancers grow. See them happy on the stage, enjoying the music and the movements. I feel great when my dancers asked me they want to learn this or that song.
That they are growing respecting and upholding the culture, and that they are very proud of it.
With all of that, I feel like I have planted a seed for the future. When someone is proud of who their are, have a positive and strong sense of self, good deeds are to come.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.AlmaMexicanaAtlanta.com
- Instagram: @almamexatl
- Facebook: AlmaMexicanaAtlanta
Image Credits
Leo Lev – The first one, with ‘papel picado’ in the ceiling – Boon Vong – The rest of them