Pueblo dance documentary

Film gets to the heart of Tewa dancesMore than seven years ago, with permission from the Ohkay Owingeh tribal council, Garcia teamed with dance critic Marilyn Hunt to document traditional Tewa dances on film. Their documentary, Dancing from the Heart: Journey of a Pueblo Dance Family, will be showcased this week at an Oklahoma film festival. The film already has won a first place at the ReelHeaART Film Festival in Toronto and was screened at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York.

The documentary, the first for Garcia and Hunt, takes viewers inside the better-known Pueblo dances such as the Eagle, Buffalo and Butterfly dances. The 45-minute documentary intersperses narration from Garcia on what he hoped to accomplish with the dance group and interviews with youth as they prepare to dance. It shows Garcia teaching an international group of students basic Ohkay Owingeh dance moves during a class he taught at The University of New Mexico.