Juanita Escobar: A story of dance and discipline amid a global pandemic in the Llanos
Juanita Escobar. Marcela Hernández, director of the Alma Llanera Academy, in 2022. "I admire my mom because, since she was a little girl, she has been alone and went to dance classes, she studied, graduated, studied journalism and now she has gone to several countries, many people know her and admire her very much," her daughter, Mariangel Tumay, said about about her.
Now on NPR, Juanita Escobar tells the story of a dance troupe’s perseverance amid the pandemic in the Llanos, produced with support from the Henry Luce Foundation as part of a Magnum Foundation initiative to show the impact of the global health crisis through a variety of perspectives.
With text by Estefania Mitre, Juanita’s photos follow Marcela Hernández, a director, teacher and dancer at Alma Llanera, a dance academy in Orocué, Colombia, and her daughter, Mariangel Tumay. Escobar began documenting the story of the dance troupe in 2020 — the adversities they faced during the last two years and how the performance brought them together as one big family.
See the full story here.
“I want to form empathetic human beings; let’s put it this way: that dancing helps them to create certain habits, that they are fulfilled, that they are disciplined, that they set goals, that they have a meeting place, that there is a family.”