Quick Take
Esperanza Del Valle and Cabrillo College join forces for an ambitious deep dive into folklorico dance with a 10-day conference featuring visiting performers from Veracruz, Mexico. The group will perform four shows over two weekends at two separate venues, teach lessons for beginners and advanced dancers, and be the headliners at a big community bash Aug. 23 in downtown Watsonville.
Obviously, cultural and artistic expressions will adapt and morph and even bloom wherever people settle, without any kind of formalized plan, design or control. That’s how culture works.
But sometimes, a little bit of cultivation … well, it couldn’t hurt. And it very well could result in a richer garden.
Maybe that’s the guiding spirit behind an ambitious music/dance conference taking place for 10 days in the middle of August called “Reinforcing Cultural Identity,” a formal attempt to celebrate and propagate traditional performing arts co-presented by Cabrillo College and the Watsonville-based Esperanza Del Valle.
The “Cultural Identity,” in this case, is Mexican folklorico dance, often characterized by its celebratory spirit and gorgeous traditional costumes.
Esperanza Del Valle is a beloved pillar of the dance community in Santa Cruz County, looking forward to its 45th anniversary next year. The group’s mission has always been to keep alive the traditions of folklorico dance from all regions of Mexico — for audiences of Latino descent or otherwise — and to inspire new generations to learn those traditional dances.
That mission takes a big step forward with this new effort, which includes two major performances and a free, festival-like “fandango” at the Watsonville Plaza. The performers this time, however, are not the dancers of Esperanza Del Valle, but two dozen visiting performers from Veracruz on the Gulf coast of Mexico.
The Ballet Folklorico del Puerto de Veracruz, along with the musical group Nematatlín de la Universidad Veracruzana, will be featured in four concerts — back-to-back weekend shows at the Mello Center in Watsonville on Aug. 17 and 18, then back-to-back performances of a different show at the Crocker Theater at Cabrillo College on Aug. 24 and 25.
In between, the visiting dancers and musicians will gather for a free public appearance at the Watsonville plaza on the afternoon of Aug. 23. And when they’re not performing, they’ll be leading classes for beginners, intermediates, and even for professionals, for young people and adults.
“One of the things that we’ve always lived by,” said Ruby Vasquez of Esperanza Del Valle, “is to do the best we can to represent these traditional dances on this side of the border in the most authentic way we possibly can do so. And that means going to Mexico to learn from maestros over there, or bringing maestros to Watsonville.”
That cultural exchange has been taking place for nearly 30 years between Watsonville and various places within Mexico. What’s new this year is a formal arrangement of sponsorship among Esperanza Del Valle, Cabrillo College and the University of Veracruz, which resulted in 24 performers visiting the area, most of them for the first time.
Students in Pajaro Valley Unified School District will also get access to the dance classes and performances.
The initial set of performances at the Mello Center, “Rostros de Mexico,” will be focused on the big picture of Mexican folklorico dance, highlighting various dances from many different states and regions of the country. The following weekend’s performances at the Crocker, “Raices de Pueblo,” sharpens its focus to traditional dances of the Huasteca region and the state of Veracruz.
Registration for folklorico dances, for all levels of experience, is now open, and tickets for performances at the Mello Center and Crocker Theater are now on sale.
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