Adam Castañeda: Breaking Barriers and Fostering Joy in Dance

Dancer/choreographer Adam Castañeda was 24 when he took his first ballet class at Houston Community College (HCC). That’s about two decades later than most professional dancemakers start training.

It was 2011 and Castañeda, who holds a master’s degree in English, was also teaching at HCC at the time.

“I was both an adjunct professor and a student there,” he laughs.

Despite his late start, Castañeda embraced dancing. He soon began performing and writing about dance for local publications. When FrenetiCore Dance’s Rivkah French saw a review he wrote about one of her shows, she invited him to join the organization.

He eventually became FrenetiCore’s executive director in 2015. After French and others left the company, Castañeda morphed it into the Pilot Dance Project. At first, the organization commissioned works by local choreographers like Jennifer Mabus, Ashley Horn, and  jhon r. stronks, with Castañeda acting as producer.

Eventually he began choreographing, entering small pieces in festivals. Then he was awarded a Dance Source Houston 2018–2019 residency, where he created his first big work.

“I haven’t stopped since,” he says.

Eventually, Castañeda became very interested in “deconstructing” what it means to be a dancer. “That led me to look at people who have limited experience or limited mobility. I brought together a group of 20 people from all over Houston. Some of them were former dancers. Some of them had never danced before.”

The group, called the Community Ensemble, was first presented at a local festival by Dance Source Houston. The Ensemble has performed at each Pilot Dance Project show since then.

“It’s really serving a need,” Castañeda tells us. “It’s giving the joy of dance to people who probably wouldn’t experience it otherwise.”

There’s no audition, Castañeda points out.  “Nobody is turned down. If you show up to the first rehearsal, you’re in the show.” And just like the professional members of the Pilot Dance Project, Community Ensemble members are paid for their work.

Juggling multiple roles for Pilot Dance Project, Castañeda notes the difference between dancer and choreographer is stark. “Your tool as a dancer is your own body. It takes a lot of effort to keep your body in the condition it needs to be in in order to dance. You can never stop taking classes; you can never stop learning. Choreography is more about imagination.”

Castañeda is currently working on creating a new work about Houston’s Near Northside, the neighborhood where he grew up and where he currently lives.

“The project is going to show the evolution of this neighborhood from a Czech-German community in the 1920s to the predominantly Mexican American neighborhood it is now. One of the pieces is The Women of Northside. We’ll use historic photographs of women from the community in public and private settings. Those images are going to be used to create movements.”

Still in the initial stages of research, Castañeda is uncovering some surprising characters and facts.

“The first regional Spanish-speaking director of Mary Kay came from the North Side. The first female judge in Houston was a Latina, and she came from this neighborhood. I’m eager to see what other fascinating stories I’m going to uncover as I do the research. As a choreographer, that’s what I get to do: take stories that sometimes have nothing to do with dance and translate them into movement.”

Follow Adam Castañeda online at @adamluis_houston. Follow the Pilot Dance Project at pilotdanceproject.org.