Patricia Luisa Torres Salvador
Artistic and General Director
Los Danzantes de Alegria

Patricia began dancing with her sister DeniseRose in the Fremont Ballet Folklorico.  While still with the FBF,  Patricia started teaching children Mexican Folk Dance in her parents home.

73paty_yng.jpg (9818 bytes)


73patricia.jpg (12199 bytes)

Her classes grew and with the help of  her students, their parents and  her family,   Patricia formed her own dance company.


In 1975 Los Danzantes de Alegria
was officially born.
733G_Nayarit.jpg (35538 bytes)

Concentrating totally on Los Danzantes de Alegria, Patricia's group grew to 40+ children and adult dancers.  They performed many times throughout the year for audiences of all backgrounds.  Some of their performances included a Stern Grove summer concert, the East West Shriners Football game, the Oakland A's, Blackhawk Soccer, the San Francisco 73trisha.jpg (15313 bytes)Ethnic Folk Dance Festival, Pier 39, Levi Strauss, Hewlett Packard, Ampex, KGO-TV, KPIX-TV, KTVU-TV,and KQED-TV.   They also danced for many cities and school districts of  Northern California including Pittsburg, San Francisco, Fremont, Oakland, Monterey, Salinas, Turlock, Santa Rosa, Milpitas, Sacramento, Fairfax and San Jose.  Los Danzantes also appeared numerous times throughout the year at churches, hospitals and nursing homes.  To ensure that her dancers learned from other teachers and met dancers from other folklorico groups,   Patricia encouraged participation in ANGF and Danzantes Unidos conferences in Kansas City, New Mexico, San Jose and Los Angeles and in the Mariachi Conferences of  Tucson, Las Cruces, San Jose and Salinas.73hidalgo.jpg (18066 bytes) 

As an example of unity, Patricia  began sharing studio space, ideas, costumes and the stage itself.  In 1976,  Los Danzantes premiered its annual dance concert. Since 1991, the group has opened the stage to share the annual performance with groups from around the Bay Area. 

Patricia and DeniseRose coordinated the Oakland A's pregame field performance for 14 years.   In 1982, this performance was danced by 16 of  Patricia's dancers.  Through the two sisters efforts, the number of participating groups and dancers grew each year.  By 1996 this performance included over 250 dancers  representing 18 groups from Northern California.


During the early years of Los Danzantes,  Patricia spent her summers studying dance in Mexico at the Universidad de Guadalajara and in Mexico City.  Her studies in Mexico
73patricia_nayarit.jpg (18653 bytes) allowed Patricia to bring dances from the regions of Campeche, Tabasco, Sones Antiguos, Chiapas, Yucatan, Colima and Tamaulipas to Los Danzantes de Alegria.

The above regions joined the already existing adult and childrens repertoires of   Veracruz, Norte,  Jalisco, Nayarit Central, Costa de Nayarit, Oaxaca, Michoacan, Zacatecas, and San Luis Potosi.  The group has also performed Sinaloa, Baja California del Sur, Guerrero and Durango.

Now a dedicated children's group, Patricia has seen many of her Danzantes grow to take their talents to other groups as dancers and teachers.  She also is teaching many 2nd generation Danzantes including her three children.

73kids_2.jpg (51906 bytes)

Patricia's children,  Jordan, Jenna-Marie and Nathan


Home Newsletter Directory Calendar Danza y Baile Links Bulletin Board


Copyright and Disclaimer