BALLET FOLKLORICO
Connecting CSU Pueblo to its community
By Coleman Cornelius | Photography by Mary Neiberg | Sept. 23, 2024
When she was in kindergarten, Dulce Garcia stopped speaking Spanish.
Her father would speak to her in his native tongue, as he had always done, and the little girl would answer in English – a language he could understand but could not fluently speak, having grown up in Durango, Mexico, before immigrating to the United States.
“It was hard on him,” Garcia, a recent graduate of CSU Pueblo, recalled. “He didn’t think he would have kids who didn’t speak Spanish because it was such a big part of his culture, and he was very proud of his culture. But I was not proud of that part of me.”
At 5 years old, she had started elementary school in Pueblo and was bullied for her heavy Spanish accent. Other children taunted and scratched her. Dulce was so ashamed that she forsook the language spoken most often in her home.
“I was embarrassed of my culture,” she said, “and I silenced myself to fit in.”
CSU Pueblo Ballet Folklorico performs at a summertime festival in Avondale, east of Pueblo.
Years passed, and Dulce began to lose her Spanish fluency. Then, when her family threw her a quinceañera – a traditional Mexican celebration of a girl’s 15th birthday – there was a crack in the door. She began to wonder whether to let her culture back in.
“I thought, ‘I should be happy and embrace this part of me all the time,’” Garcia said.
The same year, there was a turning point in Garcia’s cultural awakening: She joined CSU Pueblo Ballet Folklorico, a traditional Mexican dance troupe. It is based at the university and includes about two dozen local high schoolers, adults in the Pueblo community – and many current students and alumni of CSU Pueblo.
Left: Dulce Garcia, a first-generation CSU Pueblo alumna, helps dancers with costume changes. Garcia, a civil engineering graduate and past president of Ballet Folklorico, embraced her heritage after joining the dance group. Right: Kevin Said Barrios readies to dance on a sweltering summer day.
Top: Dulce Garcia, a first-generation CSU Pueblo alumna, helps dancers with costume changes. Garcia, a civil engineering graduate and past president of Ballet Folklorico, embraced her heritage after joining the dance group. Bottom: Kevin Said Barrios readies to dance on a sweltering summer day.
Ballet Folklorico is a joyful, noisy, colorful, and swirling expression of Mexican culture that has grown into a point of pride and an important form of community outreach for CSU Pueblo, successfully attracting and retaining university students as it proudly reflects a core part of the community. And many of the dancers are bilingual, swinging easily between English and Spanish during rehearsals, workshops, events, and competitions.
“It was eye-opening for me because I realized I could enjoy that part of me. I’m very grateful. They were my rock,” Garcia, 23, recently said, tears welling in her eyes as she discussed the role of CSU Pueblo Ballet Folklorico in her development as a young adult.
“Two big things I learned from dance that have really helped me are self-identity – I’ve grown into being a comfortable Hispanic woman – and then, leadership. Now, I’m very happy,” said Garcia, who served as president of Ballet Folklorico as she earned her bachelor’s degree in civil engineering at CSU Pueblo. Last spring, she graduated with honors as a first-generation college student and was soon hired by an engineering firm in Colorado Springs. She no longer dances with the group but continues to help with many of its community activities.
Audience members take photographs and video as Ballet Folklorico dances in Avondale.
Earlier, Garcia had graduated from East High School in Pueblo at the top of her class, with a 4.8 grade point average because of her honors courses and concurrent college enrollment. She decided to attend CSU Pueblo because she had become familiar with campus while attending dance practice there and had forged friendships with students enrolled at the university.
“I chose to stay where I felt most supported,” she said. “It helped me stay true to my own identity. At dance, I was able to express my Hispanic side, and I always felt like I was at home. It has been my safe space.”
As she listened to Garcia, Iskra Merino also became emotional, wiping away tears as her dance student described her cultural transformation. Merino is bilingual outreach and dance coordinator for CSU Pueblo Ballet Folklorico. A longtime Mexican dance instructor in Pueblo, she is the driving force behind the campus group and is keenly aware of its importance in supporting university students and other dancers. It is her mission to foster such support.
“When you know who you are and where you come from, you become a better person and a better member of the community,” Merino said.
Esly Del Palacio, a local high schooler, awaits her turn.
To put Ballet Folklorico in context, Pueblo’s population of about 112,000 people was 50 percent Hispanic in 2020, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. At CSU Pueblo, an enrollment nearing 4,000 students is about 35 percent Hispanic; this allowed the university to gain its designation as a Hispanic-Serving Institution, which makes it eligible for federal grants to support student success.
So, it’s not surprising that Ballet Folklorico has been a featured act at the CSU Pueblo President’s Gala, that it competes in traditional Mexican dance competitions regionally and nationally, and that it is often invited to perform at community events.
In June, the group earned accolades when it competed at Dancing in the Rockies 2024, a national folk dance event in Denver, and won the judges choice award for a performance reflecting traditions in Michoacán, a state on the western edge of Mexico; one of the Ballet Folklorico dancers, Esly Del Palacio, a student at Pueblo West High School, was nominated as best dancer of more than 200 in the competition.
Gali Acuna, left, performs in Avondale as community members, right, gather at picnic tables.
Gali Acuna, top, performs in Avondale as community members, below, gather at picnic tables.
As she often does, Merino prepared dancers not only by teaching footwork, choreography, and costuming, but also by sharing the region’s history and inviting locals from Michoacán to describe their experiences there.
During a summertime rehearsal at the Occhiato Student Center, dancers gathered in T-shirts, leggings, and leotards. They wore traditional Mexican dance shoes, zapatos folkloricos, with nails embedded in the heels and toes for percussive effect. And percussive it was as the dancers practiced on a raised plywood floor. Merino, standing near a wall of mirrors, cranked up recorded Mexican music; she appraised the dancers, reminding them to smile, raise their chins, and hold back their shoulders by demonstrating these movements herself.
“Our culture is loud. It’s festive. It’s celebratory,” she said later, with a wide smile.
Alejandro Otero, who earned a chemistry degree from CSU Pueblo in 2021, started dancing with Ballet Folklorico as a freshman and continued after graduation. “I love the music, the culture, everything that goes along with it,” Otero said as he regained his breath during a break. He works at the U.S. Army Pueblo Chemical Depot, monitoring air quality. “If I’m in a bad mood and I come here and start dancing,” Otero said, “my whole mood changes.”
Atziri Eiza Fuentes is a member of a Pueblo youth dance group that often performs alongside Ballet Folklorico; the younger dancers frequently join Ballet Folklorico as they mature, and some ultimately attend CSU Pueblo.
His dance partner, Teah Valdez, a senior majoring in finance at CSU Pueblo, said she too was attracted to Ballet Folklorico for its focus on culture. Valdez, who grew up in Pueblo, is another first-generation student who decided to attend the local university after becoming familiar with the campus through dance.
“I’ve learned a lot about my Mexican culture this way. I always felt disconnected from it, so this is a big part of getting to learn. It’s really colorful, and you don’t always get that in American culture,” Valdez said. She laughingly acknowledged that she has developed time management skills while participating in Ballet Folklorico and working as a finance and economics tutor on campus.
The dance they practiced was a story told in three parts, interspersed with three examples of dance traditional in Michoacán. It began on a somber note, portraying a wake, with the bereft wife of a deceased man receiving friends who pray with her through the night. Visitors bring coffee, sugar, bread, and money as condolences; men carry the body through the city to a cemetery, along a path marked by small fires. Other parts of the story illustrate ways the family continues to memorialize the deceased.
Teaching students about history and traditions is one of Merino’s aims as coordinator of CSU Pueblo Ballet Folklorico. She grew up as an asthmatic child in Chihuahua, Mexico, and longed to dance. When her health improved as a teenager, Merino jumped in. Her success as an individual – and the success of her dance groups – allowed Merino to travel through much of Mexico, Europe, and the United States for competitions and performances. Pueblo was among their stops.
“I became stronger mentally and physically. I gained confidence, and it gave me a lot of leadership skills. Dance gave me dreams because I was able to travel and see a different world. More dreams came out of that,” Merino recalled. “I was living my culture, and it gave me more love for it.”
Ballet Folklorico members attending CSU Pueblo include Leathea Mitchell and Brandy Mendoza Gandara (top left), Julianna Serena (top right), Arlett Adame and alumna Adriana Mercado (bottom left), and Emilio Ortega (bottom right).
Ballet Folklorico members attending CSU Pueblo include, from top, Leathea Mitchell and Brandy Mendoza Gandara, Arlett Adame and alumna Adriana Mercado, Julianna Serena, and Emilio Ortega.
In 1995, after she graduated from college in Chihuahua with a business degree, Merino returned to Pueblo to study English. She soon got involved with an early iteration of Ballet Folklorico and met her future husband at CSU Pueblo. The dance group disbanded, then reformed in 2012. A few years later, the group won a national competition in Texas. That gave Ballet Folklorico the credibility to gain a firm foothold on campus and in the community.
“It makes me happy and proud how the arts can change people’s lives. Ballet Folklorico is not a hobby. It’s not just extracurricular. It’s a powerful tool to change people’s lives in a multicultural and diverse society,” said Merino, 52, who also earned a master’s degree in the arts.
One of the group’s roles is to reflect and celebrate community culture. At the height of summer, with temperatures climbing into the 90s, Ballet Folklorico performed at a summer festival held by Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Avondale, a tiny community east of Pueblo.
The women’s costumes included white bloomers, dresses of colorful satin and lace, and headpieces with trailing ribbons; their makeup was flawless, with false eyelashes, black eyeliner, and bold red lipstick. The men wore cowboy hats and suede jackets as they smiled through the heat. Dancers changed costumes outside, near a mural of Our Lady of Guadalupe, as stands nearby sold tostadas, tamales, hamburgers, and snow cones.
“The people say, ‘Can you get the dancers here?’ because it’s our culture. They just love it,” said Rose Torres, who was born and raised in Avondale and helps organize the annual summer event.
Kaelyn Salazar, a younger dancer, is ready for the dance floor.
For Dio Taitano-Samora, that reception is rewarding. He is a first-generation CSU Pueblo student studying computer information systems and serves as president of Ballet Folklorico. “It’s a way to be connected,” Taitano-Samora said of the dance group, which helped attract him to the university. “Through performance, we’re able to share our culture, and that’s one of the biggest ways to give back to the community.”
As she reflected, Adriana Mercado expressed a similar idea: “I feel like I’m a different person when I’m dancing. I’m representing my culture to the community, and it makes me feel really good.” Mercado, another first-generation college student, graduated from CSU Pueblo in 2023 with two bachelor’s degrees, in nursing and biology, and now works as a registered nurse at Parkview Medical Center in Pueblo.
Ballet Folklorico conducts outreach in another key way: The group’s members promote higher education during monthly community presentations, delivered in both Spanish and English. Presenters do not specifically tout CSU Pueblo; rather, they discuss the benefits of a college education, detail career paths, and describe admissions processes, financial aid, and scholarships, among other issues. Providing information in Spanish makes many families feel more at ease, Merino said.
“It’s to show them, ‘Yes, you can come to the university. Yes, you can do it. Yes, there are resources,’” she said. “Higher education opens doors to a better life.”
Left: Iskra Merino, with young dancers, is bilingual outreach and dance coordinator for CSU Pueblo Ballet Folklorico. Right: Juan Fuentes hugs his daughter after she performs.
Top: Iskra Merino, with young dancers, is bilingual outreach and dance coordinator for CSU Pueblo Ballet Folklorico. Bottom: Juan Fuentes hugs his daughter after she performs.
Arlett Adame, a CSU Pueblo student studying psychology and English, noted that the family experiences of many Ballet Folklorico dancers resonate with their audiences. “Our parents didn’t go to college. They didn’t have the opportunity, and they didn’t have the money,” said Adame, whose parents immigrated to Pueblo from Mexico. She is vice president of Ballet Folklorico and anticipates graduating from CSU Pueblo debt-free because of scholarships and jobs on and off campus. “I have the education my parents didn’t have,” she said. “That will mean an improved quality of life.”
Garcia attended college in a similar way – with scholarships and multiple jobs. Through her years in school, she was a manager at McDonald’s and a civil engineering tutor on campus.
“I want to show people it’s possible to be more accomplished in life and not struggle as much as our parents did,” said Garcia, whose mom and two brothers also dance with Ballet Folklorico. “I want to give back to people like me. I understand how it is to be that Hispanic kid who doesn’t think those opportunities are out there for you. But they are. That’s the message we want to send.”
Photo at top: Jaylin Yamilet Reséndiz, far left, lines up with other Ballet Folklorico dancers. The traditional Mexican dance group, with about two dozen members, is an important cultural touchstone for CSU Pueblo students and the broader community. The group is based at the university and includes about two dozen local high schoolers, adults in the Pueblo community, and many current students and alumni of CSU Pueblo.
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