Juan Rios (Johnavalos)

Mexican Dance

E-mail: juan.rios@ucr.edu
Office: ARTS 156
Phone: (951) 827-2162

With an MA in Education from Stanford University and a BA in Sociology from UC Santa Cruz, Johnavalos has taught Mexican folklorico dance for over 20 years with various UC departments of Dance, Chicano Studies and currently UCR Music. He resides in Los Angeles and also works as a Teaching Artist for the Music Center of Los Angeles Artist in the Schools program.

During the 1970s and 80s, Johnavalos danced and toured with such Chicano/Mexicano dance companies as Los Mejicas de UCSC, Ballet Folklorico de Stanford, Los Lupenos de San Jose, Ballet Mexicapan of LA, The National Chicano Dance Theater of Denver, Miguel Delgado's Teatro Mechicano de la Danza of LA, and Aman International Folk Ensemble.

His most noted credits include a featured dancer in the motion picture Zootsuit by Luis Valdez (1980 Universal Studios), a Mayan dancer at EPCOT Mexican Pavilion of Disney World Florida, and a flash from the past as a music video dancer in the Bobby Womack 80s comeback album Living in a Box.

Decades of performance and volunteerism on the board of the National Association of Folklorico Groups (ANGF) have taken him to Veracruz Carnaval, Fiestas Patrias Guadalajara, Puerto Rico International Festival of Dance and such cities as Denver, Kansas City, MO, Corpus Christi, Albuquerque, Tucson, Oaxaca, and Aguascalientes.

Along with developing his singing voice and learning to play Jarana guitar from Veracruz, Johnavalos is currently enhancing his creative process through Shadow Puppetry, Pizza-box Guerrilla Toy Theater, Cranky-box Theater and Pilobolus Dance. His fusion of disciplines strives to recall the memories of the indigenous past and to create new performances about the people we call "Mexican."

His new artist name "Johnavalos" was created recently as a rite of passage into the age of 52 to commemorate a recently-found access to the indigenous cornfield left behind in Michoacan, Mexico by his grandfather who had fled to Los Angeles during the Mexican Revolution.

Johnavalos recalls being born into child labor in California and how that experience of toiling in the sun with mother Adelina and 11 siblings motivated him to attend the university and now as a Chicano dance instructor, he is dedicated to perform and document his life, his mother's life, and the distant relatives who are waiting for him to return to that long-lost cornfield that once belonged to his maternal grandfather Julian Avalos.

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