Why Did They Use Temas Folkoricos en Their Art

The Santa Iron architecture that the Historic Preservation Board defends so diligently was adopted in 1912, although the metropolis itself was founded in 1610. Similarly, the pre-Hispanic Mexico that Ballet Folklórico de México is presenting all over the world is not actual Aztec, Mayan, and Olmec dance. Amalia Hernández created it in 1952. What nosotros think of every bit authentic oftentimes isn't, just what nosotros enjoy doesn't always demand to be accurate. Sometimes information technology's merely entertainment.

Ballet Folklórico de México, which started with viii dancers, has grown over its lxx-year life into a visitor of 600 dancers and musicians performing for 45 million people. Hernández studied ballet and modern dance as a child in United mexican states Metropolis and began dreaming of a fashion to bring the diverse dances of her country into a theatrical space. She choreographed her ain folklóricos, which borrowed from traditional dances of Indigenous groups, regional folk dances, and styles from mail-Colonial traditions — all fabricated larger-than-life with huge casts of dancers and vivid costumes, sets and lighting.

No ane ever pointed their feet dancing in the villages of United mexican states, simply this was ballet folklórico. One difference oftentimes noted between traditional Mexican "danza" and what Hernández adult is that if the female dancer raises her hands nigh her caput (thus showing her legs), information technology is folklórico. The Mexican government, peculiarly the tourism department, got backside her early on on. At the beginning of her career, Hernández was also hired past the idiot box show Función de Gala to present new dances every week. In a curt period of fourth dimension, she choreographed dozens.

Hernández' grandson Salvador López is the general director of the company today. He danced in the group as a youth and traveled all over the world with his grandmother. "She was an amazing woman," he said. "In the days of Mexican artists like Diego Rivera and Octavio Paz, she was one of the few women who stepped forward and said, 'I will change Mexico.'

Courtesy Ballet Folklorico de Mexico

"She was a genius," he went on. "I watched her dealing with a traveling company of 60. It was a huge experience nether difficult conditions. She worked with impresarios and politicians. There were no tools for promotion similar we have now, only she brought the visitor to all the biggest theaters in the earth — Paris, Moscow, New York."

The group was awarded best trip the light fantastic toe grouping at the Festival of Nations in Paris in 1961 and was asked to open the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico Urban center. Since 1959, the visitor has performed every Lord's day at the Palace of Fine Arts Theatre in the capital letter urban center.

According to López, his grandmother researched regional music and dance by traveling extensively, consulting historians and musicologists, and coming together with anthropologists who showed her hieroglyphic images found on ruins, all of which helped her piece together movement suggesting pre-Hispanic civilization. "She created a new fashion, one that wasn't just a big fiesta. She included religious themes, love, war, romance, history — the visitor offers a real mosaic of our culture."

The show coming to Santa Fe volition include the very first folkloric trip the light fantastic toe she ever created, "Sones Antiguos de Michoacán" (1952).

"She used to say, "Yo sí soy profeta en mi tierra (I am a prophet in my land)," López said. "Another saying she had was that her creative procedure moved dances from 'encanto a la perfeccíon' (enchantment to perfection)."

The twoscore dancers and musicians at the Lensic will also present the Deer Dance, from the Mayo and Yaquí people of Sonora and Sinaloa; an Aztec dance; a piece from Guerrero, in Southwestern Mexico, featuring dances from the towns of Zirándoro and Altamirano; a ballet celebration of the women who fought every bit warriors in the 1910 Revolution in Mexico; a ballet from Veracruz, "Party in Tlacotalpan," featuring the striking white costumes worn there along with music and dance influenced by Spanish and African immigrants; a charrería, from the inland ranches; a parody of Mexican archetypes offered in "Life Is a Game;" and a mariachi celebration featuring the music and trip the light fantastic toe from Jalisco. Other dances in the repertoire feature the marimba and African-influence of the Caribbean-next province of Chiapas, a pre-Colonial religious trip the light fantastic of the Matachines, and the feather trip the light fantastic from the Zapotec Indians of Oaxaca.

While versions of ballet folklórico can at present be plant in almost whatsoever tourist destination in Mexico, the Hernandez version strives to continue being the biggest and best. There is a schoolhouse where 300 young dancers train to prepare for careers in the company . "We have a three-year training plan even for professionals," Lopez said. "The average age of the dancers is, I'd say, 24, and they perform, often, into their 30s."

Although many of the dances being performed were originally created by Hernandez in the 50s and 60s, Lopez said that there is ever a motility to update and amend things in small-scale ways. "Some of the dances were very long, so we shorten and refine things to run across the attention bridge of today'southward audience," he said. "Also, in that location are better-trained musicians and dancers than ever earlier, and we accept begun to use theatrical projections and amazing sound and lighting technology which never existed before."

Although the company travels all over the world, Lopez said they perform extensively in the United States every two years. Their visit to Santa Iron is part of a xl-metropolis tour. "It'due south important that we visit the Us," he said. "After all, a lot of the country used to be a part of Mexico, and the Mexican people are everywhere."

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