Claudia "Ce-Coatl" Pacheco (left) opens up the four directions by blowing on the Atecocoli/Sea shell in Riverside, CA. Photo: Community Settlement Association Riverside.

Claudia Pacheco

Danza Azteca/Mexica

Inland Empire Riverside County Latino/a/x Dance Foodways Music Azteca Mexica Nahua 2023

Danza Azteca/Mexica

Danza Azteca creates a space that celebrates our indigenous roots and creates impact in the mental wellbeing of youth, who thrive when they are proud of their indigenous cultural identity.” – Claudia Pacheco

Ce-Coatl explains the four directions. Photo: Community Settlement Association Riverside.

Claudia “Ce-Coatl” Pacheco of KALLI TECPATL, whose family is from the original seven Nahua pueblos around Lake Chapala, is a practitioner of Danza Azteca/Mexica. Her first teachers in the tradition, Jorge Ramos of Ontario and Coyote from Riverside, branched out from the Los Angeles Danza Azteca group Ketzalitzli. In Riverside, where she is based, Ce-Coatl noticed the lack of a cultural space for Mexica/Azteca/Nahuatl youth to learn about their indigenous cultural identity. Ce-Coatl is changing this through Danza Azteca, celebrating indigenous roots and helping youth and families in her community reconnect to their traditions, foodways, and ceremonies, which have been practiced for thousands of years.

Living Cultures Grant

2023

Azteka Cultural Camps

Ce-Coatl teaches a song in Nahuatl during Azteka Cultural Camp. Photo: KALLI TECPATL.

With support from ACTA’s Living Cultures Grant, Ce-Coatl will organize a summer school program, which will be both in person and virtual, in 2024. Youth from the ages of five through sixteen will hear ancestral stories and songs of gratitude in the Nahuatl Language; learn Danza Azteca; participate in making ancestral food (such as pinole and tlaxcalli/tortilla); play games using Nahuatl words; and more.