Sept. 15 to Oct. 15 is Hispanic Heritage Month, an annual celebration of the history and contributions of Hispanic and Latinx people. For La Choloteca, Atlanta’s queer Latinx dance party, this month also represents its 10th anniversary.
La Choloteca was born out of the desire from advocacy organizer and co-founder Josephine Figueroa – aka DJ La Superiorrr – to marry the worlds of queer nightlife and sexual education.
“Music encourages us to move our bodies in a very primal way, and sometimes that’s sensual and sometimes that’s sexual, but at no point is that shameful,” she said. “I think we have been taught, especially through Catholicism and conservative ideologies, that these things are bad. I wanted to shift the culture of nightlife because I saw it as this important, beautiful thing.”
Related story: New app OUT Local is a centralized platform for Atlanta’s LGBTQ+ nightlife
At every La Choloteca dance party, community organizers provide educational resources and free HIV testing to decrease the stigma around and increase accessibility to sexual health and wellness.
Figueroa, who is Peruvian, grew up without any Latinx peers and felt confused and ashamed of her identity. That is, until she traveled to Peru at 15 and felt a kind of belonging she had never before experienced. This sense of belonging is what she hopes to foster at La Choloteca parties.
Figueroa is one of three resident La Choloteca DJs, along with DJ Brian Rojas and Brook Sprickman, aka DJ Nena Linda. All music at La Choloteca parties is by Latinx artists spanning genre, and the parties themselves are expressions of the community-oriented culture Figueroa says is characteristic of the Latinx community.
“We’re social beings,” she said. “We want to bring everyone in, we want to feed you, we want to dance with you, we want to laugh.”
La Choloteca turns 10 this month, and an anniversary party is currently in the works and can be expected later this year. In the meantime, La Choloteca will be at the Salsa on the Square block party in downtown Decatur on Sept. 19 from 4 to 10 p.m. before hosting the afterparty from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. at Roaring Social to raise money for Poder Unides.
Vibrazo, La Choloteca’s monthly evening party, will then return on Sept. 26 from 6 to 11 p.m. at a to-be-announced location.
Figueroa also produced a short documentary film with director Aubri Escalera that will premiere at Out on Film. “Eight Heels and a Hard Truth” follows Mexican-born trans woman Jenny Sin Censura who survived silence, violence, and erasure in the Deep South’s world of bail bonds before reclaiming her voice and joining other Atlanta leaders.
The film will be screened on Sept. 30 at 7 p.m. at Landmark’s Midtown Art Cinema as part of Atlanta’s Reel Resistance Fellowship Showcase. Tickets can be purchased at Out On Film’s website.
More information and updates on La Choloteca can be found on the party’s website and Instagram.
Related story: Atlanta’s Chaka Khan Hacienda to go on hiatus after Sept. 27 event
