ON MARCH 22, the Grangers’ Latinos in Action team hosted the Folklore Showcase. During the event, the folklore dance group performed to an audience of family, friends, students, teachers, and more.

The Folklore Showcase presented over twelve folklore dances, including a dance called, Jarabe, Tapatio, Son de la Negra, La Bruja, Mezcalito, El Pato Asado, and many more. The Folklore Showcase was a fundraiser to help promote the folklore dance team. During this event, Latinos in Action helped the fundraiser by selling entry tickets, chicharrones, aguas frescas, and chips for the audience to enjoy as they watched the folklore group dance.

The folklore dance group focuses on representing and practicing old Mexican & Hispanic traditional cultural dances. For example, the folklore dance group has a dance called the El Pato Asado, which originated from Sinaloa, Mexico.

If someone performs in a crowd of people, they may feel scared, overwhelmed, and uncomfortable. This was the case for a few of the dancers in Granger’s LIA folklore dance group.

Dulce Carilllo (10) danced beautifully in front of the crowd. “I was incredibly nervous at first, but as the dance continued, I felt more comfortable. After a while, I had more fun. It was really interesting seeing everyone dance, and I had a lot of fun,” Carrillo said.

Another LIA dancer, Adrian Colina (11), had a great view of the entire event. “We all did great as a group because we practiced together for two months. We put a lot of effort into the showcase. I was not only in the Dance group, but I also attended the president meetings. We mainly talked about the planning, food, seating arrangements, engaging the audience, fundraising, where, and how to perform,” Colina said.

“Most of us were nervous, not only because my family was watching me, but all my family and friends were watching me. I, of course, felt this pressure because I was dancing traditional Mexican dances, and…well I’m Venezuelan, so I felt a little bit judged because this is not a part of my culture. But my dance partners and I were amazing in our performances,” Colina said.

Although the Folklore Showcase was open for everyone to attend, it served a direct purpose for the dance group. “Our folklore dance group had been dancing without proper dresses. They would normally wear more cultural and appropriate Vestuarios dresses based on the dances that they are doing; however, we haven’t been able to get the proper funding to get those certain types of dresses,” Nathan Black, the LIA adviser, said.

“Other schools have been able to get those dresses, and so we would like our girls to look and appear more professional. We decided to build a fundraiser to try and help our girls get their dresses. The fundraiser’s goal was to raise $750, but we were able to raise over a $1000! We beat our goal and hopefully, next year, we will be able to purchase new dresses, and the girls will be all dressed up in full Vestuarios,” Black said.