Swain County Schools celebrated Native American heritage on Nov. 8-9 by having Aztec dancers perform for students at the Swain County Center for the Arts. The five presentations featured Mesoamerican culture through traditional Aztec dance and music performed by Chicahua Yolotli, an Aztec Dance and Music group from North Georgia.
The four members of the group included Javier and Felicia Alfaro, their 5-year old daughter, Aaliyah, and Margaret Garcia, who is originally from Mexico.
Yolotli played traditional music on a variety of unique wind and percussion instruments made mostly of clay and wood, which included several types of drums, flutes and whistles. Their bodies also became instruments in the dances with the rattles attached to the leggings in their regalia. The regalia they wore was symbolic of Quetzalcoatl (the Feathered Serpent) and included elaborate headdresses of two- to five-foot feathers from the pheasant, the macaw and the rooster.
828.488.7843 or www.swain.k12.nc.us/cfta.
Here they are, books yammering for review: a hillock of books on the floor by the desk; more books stacked on the desk itself, squeezed between a basket of spectacles and a coffee cup filled with pens and pencils, the cup itself bearing Jefferson’s remark, “I cannot live without books;” two more books for review keeping company in the trunk of my car; a lone rider of a book on the arm of the sofa by the porch door.
