Music, dance troupe lights up Grand Kiva at Aztec Ruins with 90-minute performance

AZTEC — The ancient confines of the Great Kiva at Aztec Ruins National Monument resonated with sound and movement on Friday, Aug. 25, when a Santa Fe-based group brought a touring troupe to the park for a 90-minute music and dance performance.

New Mexico Family and Community Engagement Solutions, a public-private partnership that staged a series of public performances and workshops all week in northwest New Mexico and northeast Arizona, presented the show. Ferdi Serim, the group’s founder, led a five-piece band that included Delbert Anderson, the internationally known Farmington jazz band leader and trumpeter. The group also featured dancer Amber Vasquez, who kicked up small clouds of dust that hung in the beams of sunlight penetrating the kiva’s dark interior.

Serim said the group’s Digital Equity Tour was presented by the New Mexico Early Childhood Education and Care Department, and was intended to showcase the support being offered to early childhood centers and licensed home day care providers by that agency.

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Part of his group’s work, Serim said, was to conduct an assessment of the technological needs of those centers and convey them back to state officials. But the group’s primary goal on Friday was to demonstrate for park visitors the magic of music, dance and visual art in an inspirational setting.

“We hope we can share the power of the arts to connect families,” Serim said during a break in the troupe’s performance. “The only way to have healthy communities is to have healthy families.”

Serim took note of the many families with children in the audience and said that indicated to him that the event had served its purpose. He said the troupe also had performed this week at Boys & Girls Clubs and libraries, and for Rotary clubs — “Anywhere that families gather,” he said.

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While his organization promotes the use of new digital technology to help people connect with creative impulses, he said nothing can replace the power of a live performance, especially in a setting like the Great Kiva.

“The answer isn’t on the screen, it’s the connection between people,” he said. “And our people are bringing this message all over the world.

Mike Easterling can be reached at 505-564-4610 or measterling@daily-times.com. Support local journalism with a digital subscription: http://bit.ly/2I6TU0e.

This article originally appeared on Farmington Daily Times: Show staged by New Mexico Family and Community Engagement Solutions