Want to journey through the different regions of Mexico and learn the cultural traditions through dance, all without leaving Tahoe? Arts for the Schools brings a performance by the Ballet Folklorico Mexicano de Carlos Moreno (BFM) to Tahoe City on Friday, April 25. The 20-plus ensemble will travel from Oakland to present its dance pieces, all drawn from the traditions of different states in Mexico.
“We give a show with a lot of costume changes and different types of music; I’ve heard people compare it to being on a roller coaster ride a bit,” said Carlos Moreno-Garcia, artistic director and son of BFM founder Carlos Moreno-Samaniego. “It’s not you’re typical ballet; it’s folk dance so the dancers are up there having fun and the audience feeds off that.”
Keeping with the Arts for the Schools format, BFM will perform in Tahoe schools leading up to Friday’s public show. A smaller group of dancers will host interactive and educational performances for students at Kings Beach Elementary, Alder Creek Middle School, North Tahoe High and Middle schools, and an additional performance at NTHS for students from other local schools. “The performers are really teaching artists, and they shine in a unique way when performing and engaging with the younger audience,” said Jenny Pitts-Knipe, Arts for the Schools program director. “There’s an electric energy that comes with being in a room with 500 young kids.”
BFM was founded 47 years ago in Livermore, Calif., by Mexican emigrant Moreno-Samaniego, who wanted to share the traditions of Mexican folklore with his community. The performance company soon grew to include a dance school and relocated to Oakland in 1980. Moreno-Garcia was born in 1981, and would come to take over artistic direction of the ballet in the 1990s after spending summers in Mexico and dancing professionally in Mexico City for two years.
Throughout his time dancing in and directing BFM, Moreno-Garcia’s been driven by the same thing. “It’s the connection with the roots of where I came from. I was born and raised in the U.S., and I connect with most of our dancers and with our audience in that way,” he explained. “Teaching in schools is a way to expose the culture of Mexico to students so they can better appreciate it, and to have people be excited for the music and dance.” He shared that the company travels to Mexico every couple of years to research dances, to give the company dancers an authentic experience in the country, and even to perform their ballet for the people of Mexico.
BFM’s upcoming tour to Tahoe — its first time performing here — will include well-known dances like the celebratory, flirtatious Mexican hat dance from the Jalisco region of Mexico, while also introducing the audience to less-common dances. BFM will open the show with the mythical and hypnotic concheros, an Aztec-influenced indigenous dance featuring feathered headpieces and dancing with rattles, with drum and mandolin for accompaniment. Through showcasing the entire spectrum of folklore and dance, the company hopes to promote Mexico’s colorfully diverse culture.
