Federal Dances, directed by Micaela Gardner, was an abstract, modern dance treatment of the cultural, colonial and federal history of New Mexico. The dances were crafted over a year on site inside the stone girding of what was once a Calvary racetrack designed for the entertainment of US Troops in the 1880s. The dance vocabulary was informed by the palpable presence of history in the park itself. Colonial stories like The Procession of La Conquistadora, Onate and the Acomans, and the Native Slave Trade animate the dance actions. The dancers assume a ritual emptiness that harkens Ghost Dancing to embody the cultural echoes binding the work. 

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• Choreography: Micaela Gardner

• Performance: Sarah Ashkin, Spencer Toll, Ariel Johnson, Sophia Rog, Whitney Jones, Micaela Gardner and Mikyla Hutwohl

• Music: Daniel Murphy