An Aztec fire dance was performed at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel downtown at a luncheon held by the Albany-Dougherty Chamber of Commerce for Atlanta’s international diplomatic community May 12.
Javier Alarcon, an Aztec from Cancun, Mexico, performed the dance to a steady drum beat for the 110 guests, drawing not only their attention but that of many of the staff and other hotel guests who crowded the entrances to the banquet hall.
“The sprinklers didn’t go off,” jested chamber president Jones C. Hooks, who explained that the chamber would be featuring Mexico at its annual international festival on the banks of the Flint river to be held in October. The United Kingdom was to be featured last year, but the festivities were washed out by the major flooding that inundated Middle and Southwest Georgia.
Mr. Alarcon will perform the same dance at Albany’s Chehaw National Indian Festival this month which attracts representatives of many tribes from Canada, the U.S. and Central America and has been selected as one of the top 20 events in the Southeast by the Southeastern Tourism Society.
For more information, the chamber may be reached by calling (912) 434-8700; fax, (912) 434-8716.