How a girl from Mexico fought to dance in the clouds
Irene García Hernández defied gender norms to take part in a high risk aerial tradition called The Dance of the Flyers.
When Irene García Hernández was six years old, she looked up at the sky and saw men spinning around a pole on ropes, 36 metres above the ground. They were performing the ‘Danza de los Voladores’, or Dance of the Flyers, a tradition dating back thousands of years in Mexico which is typically the preserve of men. A rebel by nature, Irene was set on becoming a flyer too. She’d have to overcome family barriers, and her fears, to become one of the few Mexican women to dance in the sky.
Presenter and producer: Louise Morris
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(Photo: The Danza de los Voladores being performed in Cuetzalan del Progreso, Mexico. Credit: Gerardo Borbolla)
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