San Marcos High School Ballet Folklorico is a club for girls and boys to participate in after school. It is where they do Spanish and Mexican dances as well as wear different types of clothes for each dance. There is a process with everything just like Ballet Folklorico. In ballet folklorico, there are occasions when dancers want to keep improving and there are times when dancers want to walk away. Although you decide not to, it opens a path where you’re able to expand your vision on it. “There are people that make me want to leave, but also people that make me want to stay,” Aurora Hernandez said. This just goes to show how in Ballet Folklorico there are steps that you will face. During this, everyone is on a ladder climbing to learn a new step. Everyone in this community knows that it takes more than just the learner to know the dance which leads to helping each other to build a stronger ladder. Overall Ballet Folklorico is like a piñata, you don’t know what to expect but you know you’re excited for what’s to come.
In Ballet Folklorico there are three different types of styles of ballet folklorico: danza, mestizo, and bailes regionales. Danza is the original Mexican folk dance that was performed by the indigenous people before the Spanish arrived according to the article “The History Of Folklorico Dances In Mexico.” Mestizo is mixing Spanish, French, German, and Italian influences, with the indigenous dance. Bailes Regionales are dances from different communities which are interpretations. The folklorico dances weave together a tapestry of the country’s myths, legends, tales, and traditions.
In SMHS ballet folklorico is taught dances from Jalisco, Sinaloa, and Veracruz. For Jalisco, the ones they have done are “Los Machetes, El Ángel, Són De la Negra, Jarabe Tapatío”. They have done “El Palo Verde, Vuela Paloma, El Niño Perdido”. For Veracruz some are “La Bruja, El Huateque, El Ahualulco, La Bamba.” These all come from the Sopifty that the president from the club made for the students who are in the club and want to practice more at home. The song they are practicing most is “La Bruja” from Veracruz because that song is a bit more complicated. After all, the girls have to dance with a candle on their head and they have to try to balance it without making it fall. They have been trying very hard to keep it balanced because they don’t want to break the candle, many have already dropped them and have come close to breaking the candle. One girl has already broken the candle completely and won’t be able to reuse it. That is why they are working very hard for this dance. They have limited dresses so it is up to the teacher who does the dances or will have to do a different dance.
“For you to get heels you have to earn them, I need to make sure you will stay,” said Luis Jose Oceguera, the teacher for the SMHS ballet Folklorico club.
The ballet folklorico club has helped many students who have been in the club and have left the club. It has helped them physically and mentally. It really helps to express yourself when doing the dances. Ballet Folklorico can help destress students, provide enjoyment to students and can help increase people’s social skills. It can also allow students to feel self-confident and give them a safe space to express themselves through the movement of the dances. Ballet Folklorico helps challenge students, it does that by making them want to learn and practice as well as memorize the dances. The dance makes you have to focus on the present and allows you to break free from all your problems and worries. It can also really help work on your coordination, focus, and posture, it forces you to work together with the people around you. That helps with your social life and makes you have to be a team leader, cause you’re not doing the dances by yourself, you’re doing it with a group. “Being here helped me socialize and worked on my social skills,” said Mariana Lara (12), the club president of the Ballet Folklorico club.
Ballet folklorico is something good that can help in everyone’s lives, but performers will go through challenges and rough paths but in the end, students there feel like they accomplished something when finished. Anyone can join no matter the race, the color of their skin, or the way you look. As long as you put in the effort and don’t give up even when it’s hard or what people say, keep trying because you will only get better from trying. It will feel like a home to you because you will be able to express yourself through your dancing when you’re having trouble in life, you can always turn to Folklorico cause it will give you motivation to go. There are many students in the club who have jobs and have a lot to do and the club gives them something to break free from it all. If it gives ballet folklorico students a second home it can give you one too. It is somewhere where you feel safe and feel like you can be yourself, if your home isn’t like a home folklorico can give you that home. You can make new friends when there and allow you to hang out often.
In all Ballet folklorico has many positives and barely any negatives. If you would like to join you can, they meet in the cafe and practice from 3:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. They wear all black. You don’t have to know the steps or any dances they teach you everything there. All you have to do yourself is learn the dances, memorize, commit to going, and you have to try even the moves you don’t know well. They are really in need of boys, but if you are a girl you can still join. Their Instagram is SMHS Ballet Folklorico, you can get more information there. Remember you only make it far if you’re committed.
“I don’t just teach dances or the songs, I teach the story behind them,” said Oceguera.
