The 2011 Zacatecas Cultural Festival opened with a parade of the individual dances from fiestas from throughout the state and it was a rare treat. In a currently sparsely populated state its unusual to get to the 3-hours distant Southern rim which lies on the border with Jalisco, but I promise you all, after meeting and seeing these Tastuanes Alfonso the Anthropologist and I are doing our best to see their July 25 fiesta to Santo Santiago, their patron… they were mouth dropping intense, strange, funny and cool, all the good things.

Each small community features a dance with lots of heritage – the Matlachine you see in different versions usually plays tribute to the Virgin of Guadalupe. These are not obviously hyper-choreographed and packaged versions of the native dances, they are living rituals.