Cupid’s Arrow: Folklórico Choreographies to Love

Leave a comment

February is the season of love. What better way to celebrate the season than by recognizing a few folklórico choreographies that are beloved by many. For this blog post, I describe my four favorite folklórico choreographies that have been set by talented maestro(a)s. I chose these works because of their tremendous influence throughout the folklórico community. So, let’s recognize a few iconic folklórico choreographies by amazing artists who have influenced us all.

*Técnica Raza

Rafael Zamarripa Castañeda, Ballet Folklórico de la Universidad de Colima

Rafael Zamarripa Castañeda founded the Ballet Folklórico de la Universidad de Colima in 1981. He has choreographed many dance suites. Yet, it is his development of a folklórico technique called Técnica Raza that is my favorite of all his contributions. I learned elements of Técnica Raza from him at the Asociación Nacional de Grupos Folklóricos (ANGF) conference in 2002. Here, dancers learn sophisticated folklórico zapateado sequences that utilize the heel, toe, and entire body as they travel across the floor. Designed to increase spatial awareness, enhance motor ability, and especially encourage clear zapateado footwork sequences this technique is a wonderful tool for dance training (Director’s Class ANGF Dance Workshop, June 29-July 6, 2002; https://www.tecnicaraza.com/founder).

*Although Técnica Raza is a series of folklórico dance training techniques, I have included this as a choreographic work because I have seen folklórico dance groups perform it on stage. Plus, these techniques required choreographic skill to develop and teach.

Revolución

Amalia Hernández, Ballet Folklórico de México de Amalia Hernández 

Las Adelitas
Gabriela Mendoza-Garcia Ballet Folklorico Teen/Adult Beginners

Amalia Hernández founded the Ballet Folklórico de Mexíco in 1952. (Aguirre and Escalona, 1994, 16-42). One of Hernández’s most famous choreographies depicts the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920) using song and dance. Hernández choreographed this suite based upon her own family stories. It is very close to her heart. In this iconic dance piece she utilized the corridos of the era. The corridos are musical ballads that sing of the heroes/heroines of the war, love lost and found etc. She usually begins La Revolución showcasing the aristocrats dancing the ballroom dances of the epoch. Then, the revolutionaries or peasants interrupt the scene carrying rifles while the aristocrats rush off stage. The music changes to the corridos of the time period alongside dancing which has intricate footwork and skirt work elements (Ballet Folklórico de México de Amalia Hernández: Sesenta y Cuatro Aniversario).  Of this suite one of her most beloved is a tribute to the soldaderas called Las Adelitas. These women who fought along men in battle during the Mexican Revolution are depicted as strong, brave, and fierce. So many folklórico groups in Mexico and the United States have followed her lead in depicting the dances and soldaderas during the Mexican Revolutionary War.

El Bolonchon

Alura Flores de Angeles “Godmother of Mexican Dance,” Cultural Missions

We cannot forget the contributions of Kinesiology teachers in the 1920s and 1930s who were sent by the Secretaría de Educación Pública to rural communities to teach. The Cultural Missions consisted of a group of teachers in different disciplines plus a social worker to rural areas where public education was lacking. Flores de Angeles was a part of one of these missions. She remembers teaching physical education classes to all. In addition, she was instructed to collect the dances of the rural people. She was sent to Chiapas, Mexico in San Juan Chamula. At the time she was a single mother because her husband had recently passed away. While her son was living with his grandmother, Flores de Angeles traveled with this group of educators to teach. She is most famous for learning El Bolonchon during the festival of the Virgen de Asunción. She choreographed it for the stage. These efforts mark the very beginnings of the folklórico movement that we know of today (Mendoza-García, 85-102).

To read more about Flores de Angeles, please read the following posts:

Alura Flores de Angeles “Godmother of Mexican Dance” (1905-2000)

Teaching Folklorico Dance as a Living Practice

Las Michoacanas: Recovering the Writings of Alura Flores de Angeles

Calabaceados de Baja California

Juan Gil Martínez Tadeo, El Grupo de Danza Folklórica Kicukpaico

Calabaceados de Baja California
Gabriela Mendoza-Garcia Ballet Folklorico Company

In the 1960s in La Misión, Baja California, Mario Ramón Reyes Meléndez spoke with the elders of this community who stated that the varsouvianna, polka, and shotis were the traditional dances of this region. Yet, he noticed that in this community the youth danced calabaceados (Valdovinos García, 125-126). These dances are performed by cowboys and cowgirls to musica norteña. They dance with much flexibility kicking their legs in the air and stomping the heel of the boot on the floor (Martínez Tadeo, 41-42). In 1979, Mario Ramón Reyes Meléndez organized the first festival called La Fiesta de la Misión in La Misión, Baja California. Here, the youth danced calabaceados. In 1982, he invited Juan Gil Martínez Tadeo to choreograph these calabaceados for the stage. In 1991, Martínez Tadeo started El Grupo de Danza Folklórica Kicukpaico and they performed a dance suite representing the calabaceados of La Misión, Baja California. According to Raúl Valdovines García in El Baile Calabaceado: Tradicion de la Fiesta de Vaquero (2017), calabaceados were not considered part of the folklórico repertory for a long time. It was until Martínez Tadeo choreographed these dances for the stage, that they gradually were adopted into the folklórico repertoire of companies in Mexico (17, 21, 37, 126-127, 129-131). I know it is hard to imagine the folklórico community without the calabaceados because they have become a part of the identity of the people of Baja California.

My Thoughts

I think that these choreographic works are iconic in our folklórico community. I cannot imagine what the folklórico world would be like without the choreographic contributions of these maestra/os. Yes, there are so many more maestra(o)s with iconic dance choreographies that I did not mention. These are just a few. What choreographies are your favorite?

Written by: Gabriela Mendoza-Garcia, Ph.D.

Dancing Throughout Mexican History (1325-1910)
Dancing Throughout Mexican History (1325-1910)

The book Dancing Throughout Mexican History (1325-1910) written by Sanjuanita Martínez-Hunter and edited by myself is available for purchase on amazon. Please click on the link below.

https://www.amazon.com/author/gabrielamendozagarcia

Works Cited

Aguirre Cristiani, and Felipe Segura Escalona.1994. El Ballet Folklórico de Mexico de Amalia Hernández. México D.F.: Fomento Cultural Banamex. A.C.

Asociación Nacional de Grupos Folklóricos Conference XXIX  Director’s Class Workshop. 2002.

Ballet Folklórico de Mexico de Amalia Hernández: Sesenta y Cuatro Aniversario. DVD. Disc 1. Documental.

Martínez Tadeo, Juan Gil. Calabaceados de Baja California. In Asociación Nacional de Grupos Folklóricos Conference XXIX Syllabus. 2002. 42-44.

Mendoza-García, Gabriela. Bodily Renderings of the Jarabe Tapatío in Early Twentieth-Century Mexico and the Millennial United States: Race, Nation, Class, and Gender. PhD. diss. University of California, Riverside, 2013.

Valdovinos García, Raúl. 2017. El Baile Calabaceado: Tradición de la Fiesta del Vaquero. Baja California: Universidad Autónoma de Baja California.

Zamarripa Castañeda, Rafael. n.d, Técnica Raza.      https://www.tecnicaraza.com/founder (accessed January 28, 2020).

Five Historical Facts about Las Adelitas or Las Soldaderas

7 Comments

Adelita is a nickname given to women soldiers or soldaderas who fought along side men in battle during Mexico’s Revolutionary War (1910-1920). Many of us depict these brave women when we perform the dances of La Revolución. I first learned La Revolución as a dancer with Roy Lozano’s Ballet Folklórico de Tejas in the 1990s. Roy Lozano, my teacher, passed on the choreographies that he learned from performing with the Ballet Folklórico de México de Amalia Hernández in the late 1970s. Following this dance tradition, I have taught these dances to my own company which have been in our own repertoire since 2003. Yet, I feel that our folklórico practice encourages a romanticized view of the las adelitas. Quite recently, I began to deep deeper into historical accounts and realized that there was so much that I didn’t know.  

  • 1. The word soldaderas refers to women who followed men in camp and those who fought in battles. During Mexico’s Revolutionary War, soldiers paid women to work on their behalf as servants. These women purchased supplies, cleaned clothes, cooked, cared for the sick, buried the dead, and some were prostitutes. Many women were expected to follow their husbands, fathers, brothers, lovers, etc. into the military. Yet, others fought in battle as soldiers, generals and colonels. They lead militias of men and women troops to fight during the Revolution (Salas 1990, xii, 44; Monsiváis 2006, 5).
Soldaderas as Camp Followers
Soldaderas as Camp Followers
  • 2. Not all women willingly followed men in battle. Some were abducted and raped. There are stories of young girls been taken from their homes and forced to follow the troops while their mothers cried at home. Newspaper accounts tell of women kidnapped on trains and even one reports that forty women, almost the entire female population from the village of Jojutla, were abducted by Zapatistas. Nuns were taken from their convent and forced to accompany the Carrancistas. After the war, many of these nuns were pregnant or had children of their own. Parents fought back by hiding their children in the fields, posting look outs for revolutionaries, disguising their daughters etc. (Salas 1990, 40-42).
Soldaderas during the Mexican Revolution
Soldaderas during the Mexican Revolution
  • 3. Women were so very brave. They lead regiments of men in battle as colonels and generals. They also led regiments comprised entirely of women in battle. Women were sent on secret spy missions, brought ammunition to men while dodging bullets during the line of fire, and some were so courageous that they were feared and respected by men (Salas 1990, 41-43).
Soldadera on Horse
Soldadera on Horse
  • 4. As we dance Las Adelitas we wear cartridge belts around our torso, carry rifles and use a serious expression to portray these tough, courageous women. We wear skirts and blouses typical of the time period. Yet, some soldaderas dressed as men. They wore pants, shirts, or even dressed in men’s military uniforms. See pictures below.
Soldadera posing for the camera
Soldadera  Posing
Carmen Robles, Soldadera
Carmen Robles, Soldadera
  • 5. After the Mexican Revolutionary War, women’s military contributions were devalued. Women were not called colonels or soldiers but were listed under the general term of soldaderas. The military classified soldaderas as wives. Very few women veterans received military pensions. Most did not. Women who did receive pensions could not re-marry nor officially participate in the military (Arce 2017, 65, 82). In addition, after the Revolution, images of the soldaderas were romanticized in literature, film, art, and song. Soldaderas were not depicted as diverse, independent women many of which fought in battle but instead they were cast along four main stereotypes.  Soldaderas were characterized as either self-sacrificing, sexually carefree, sweethearts, or soldiers (Salas 1990, 69, 82).
Soldadera Artwork
Artwork of Soldadera on a Mexican Calendar

My Thoughts

I have danced and taught the choreographies that represent La Revolución for years.Yet, I believe that a close study of history alongside our folklórico practice really allowed me the ability to fully appreciate the individual spirit of these brave and courageous women.

Written by Gabriela Mendoza-Garcia Ph.D.

For more writings on Mexican Dance History, please read Sanjuanita Martínez-Hunter’s book Dancing Throughout Mexican History (1325-1910) of which I edited. It is available for purchase on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/author/gabrielamendozagarcia

Dancing Throughout Mexican History (132-1910)
Dancing Throughout Mexican History (1325-1910)

Works Cited

Arce, Christine.2017. México’s Nobodies: The CulturalLegacy of the Soldadera and Afro-Mexican Woman. Albany: State University ofNew York.

Monsiváis, Carlos.2006. “Foreword.” In Sex in theRevolution: Gender, Politics, and Power in Modern Mexico, ed. JocelynOlcott, Mary Kay Vaughn, and Gabriela Cano. 1-20. Durham: Duke University Press.

Salas, Elizabeth. 1990. Soldaderas in the Mexican Revolution: Myth and History. Austin: The University of Texas Press.

FurtherReading

Craske, Nikki. “Ambiguities and Ambivalences in Making the Nation: Women and Politics in 20th Century Mexico.” Feminist Review.79 (2005) 116-133.

Olcott, Jocelyn, Mary Kay Vaughn, and Gabriela Cano. 2006. Sex and the Revolution: Gender,  Politics, and Power in Modern Mexico. Durham: Duke University Press.

Poniatowska,Elena, 2016. Hasta no verte Jesús mío.Madrid: Alianza Literaria.

Schaefer, Claudia. 1992. Textured Lives: Women, Art, and Representation in Modern Mexico. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press.

Turner, Frederick C. 1967. “Los Efectos de la Participación Femenina en la Revolución de 1910.” Historia Mexicana. 16 no. 4 (April-June): 603-620.