A story of dance and discipline amid a global pandemic in the Llanos

This is the story of Marcela Hernández, a director, teacher and dancer at Alma Llanera, a dance academy in Orocué, Colombia, and her daughter, Mariangel Tumay. Photographer Juanita Escobar began documenting the story of the dance troupe in 2020 — the adversities they faced during the last two years and how the performance brought them together as one big family.

Marcela Hernández was one of many vulnerable children in Villavicencio, Colombia, in the 1980s. When she was 11 years old, she remembers an aunt telling her, "this girl develops and gets pregnant."

"That's what they are expecting from me," Marcela recalls, so she fought to pursue her dreams and paddle against the current.

Marcela learned she could overcome any stereotype and follow her dreams as a dancer. She lived and worked in Villavicencio and Bogotá. When her career as a dancer reached its peak, she traveled to Orocué, along with Gersi,