Baile Folklorico
by Elizabeth Johnstone
Last week, a few days after arriving home from New York, I attended an elementary school ballet folklorico performance. I hadn't seen a baile folklorico since I was a little girl - I remember hot Texas summers, bright costumes, and the click of the castanets.
Watching this, I feel as if I have come a long way. I'm not a city girl anymore. Instead, I am someone who sits in a cafetorium in the middle of the school day watching small children in pretty outfits plow their enthusiastic way through the traditional dances of Mexico.
The teachers had gone to great pains to make the performance as authentic as possible, to truly connect the children to the different cultures and regions of Mexico. One of the school's fifth grade teachers, Mrs. Dominguez, drove back and forth across to the border, ordering their costumes months in advance. Dances from the Yucatan reflected indigenous traditions as well as clothing, while the dances from Northern Mexico featured the black trousers and boots.
The youngest group, mostly first grade children, did a modified version of a dance from the Yucatan - my mother, also a teacher, was the "choreographer." But as the kids bopped around the may pole, colorful streamers flying, one girl stuck out like a sore thumb. Every child was bouncing, except for her. It looked like it was hard for her to lift her feet to walk, let alone do the dance. Every once in awhile, she'd give a little kick, but she slowed down the circle and the kids were bumping into her left and right.
I asked my mom afterwards - why doesn't she dance? My mom shrugged and told me she didn't know, but that she'd talked to her over and over and it hadn't done any good. She still dragged her feet through every performance and practice like she didn't want to be there.
But she still showed up. She was miserable, but she was there.
We people are so funny in that way-- we do things by choice (ballet folklorico is an extracurricular, by the way) that are clearly distasteful. We think it serves a greater purpose, that eventually the experience will be worth it and we'll receive our due for putting in our time. It's terrible but seemingly necessary, this bizarre prostitution of our lives.
I know how the plodding, miserable girl feels - but I identify more completely with Cindy.
Cindy was in my mom's class last year. Smart, cute, round little glasses. She and her best friend Isabelle signed up for ballet folklorico, and they danced all year long together. They loved it. Performance time was coming up and they tried on costumes and had dress rehearsals. But when it came time for the actual show, Cindy refused to go. No one could talk her into getting up on stage- not Isabelle, not my mother, not her mother. She was literally paralyzed with a fear that hadn't manifested itself until the very end. The finish line was in sight and she just couldn't do it. She didn't do ballet folklorico again.
And I get it. These are just kids. But I used to be so excited, so in love with the idea of my future and all the things it would hold. Now, as I come closer to my own finish line, all I feel is that sense of paralysis. I think constantly, I have so much to do. Will I do it? Do I have the time? And then I end up doing nothing at all. Stuck.
In the department of the dramatic writing, our introductory play and screen writing course is called "Craft" because it's an art and we're working to hone our skills. We're crafting an art form; it should be liberating. The act of dancing- any sort, ballet folklorico or not- is supposed to be freeing.
The performance was finished off by a demonstration of two dances from Northern Mexico by the principal of the school and Mrs. Dominguez. He wore the pants and the jacket and boots and the hat; she a beautiful yellow ruffled skirt and a large flower in her hair. Together, they danced and twirled. They looked wonderful, I thought.
After it was over, Mrs. Dominguez came up to me. "Could you see?" She asked me. "On the zapateadas. I hurt my ankle in practice a few weeks ago. I was hesitating." I told her sincerely that I didn't see a thing.
We all hesitate. We are human. But we must learn not to pull back in fear or hesitation simply because we are afraid of actually succeeding.
