The Maxwell Museum of Anthropology at The University of New Mexico is pairing up with the Asian American and Pacific Islander Resource Center to offer a special edition of its popular Dancing in the Cave event.

Everyone is invited bright and early to the Maxwell on Friday, Feb. 16, from 8 to 10 a.m. The event is free but attendees are asked to register online so the museum staff can plan to have plenty of fresh juice and iced coffee on hand. Participants can bring their own yoga mat or borrow one.

Dancing in the Cave • Maxwell Museum of Anthropology
The University of New Mexico • Friday, Feb. 16, 8 - 10 a.m.
 • Admission is free • Register online

This edition is focused on the Asian Underground to highlight the countercultural genre that started in 1990s Britain, when kids from immigrant families began “mixing their traditional musical roots with drum and bass, electronic beats and urban sounds.” (Bureau of Lost Culture, The Birth of the Asian Underground podcast.)

Apart from the usual disco lights and fun environment inside the museum’s gallery, the event will feature Farah Nousheen and Sikandar Awan, also known as DJ Malik. 

Nousheen will lead guests in warmup and cool down yoga sessions. She is the student success specialist at AAPIRC as well as the founder and yoga instructor at Yoga for People of Color Sangha, a local holistic healing and empowerment hub active from 2016-23. 

DJ Malik is a UNM graduate student, world traveler, and talented musician who specializes in what he calls “ethnic house” music, a mix and combination of techno, deep house, progressive with the Southeast Asian and Middle Eastern beats. He will provide the soundscape to the yoga sessions and the dance party.

Join students, staff, faculty, and community members as everyone gathers to dance in and around the Maxwell “cave” that’s part of its Ancestors exhibit. As musician Jorge Drexler reminds us in his song, Bailar en la Cueva (Dancing in the Cave): “Humans were making music more than 12,000 years ago, way before we invented agriculture.” So, come celebrate humanity's creativity through art + movement!

For more info visit the Maxwell blog