Cinco de Mayo Spotlights Festive Movements of Ballet Folklorico Ollin

Ballet folklorico dance troupes may regard Cinco de Mayo the way department store clerks view the Christmas rush: It never seems to end. As Virginia Diediker, director of the San Fernando-based Ballet Folklorico Ollin, puts it, “Cinco de Mayo lasts from April to June for us.”

Last week, members of the 17-year-old dance group were finishing a 10-day tour in Mexico where they performed at La Feria de San Marcos, a huge national fair that many equate with Mardi Gras in New Orleans. This week the group is sticking closer to home; performances are scheduled every day at schools--including Pierce College--and parks throughout Southern California.

Ballet Folklorico Ollin was originally started by a group of local high school students looking for something fun to do after school. Diediker was brought in as an adviser soon after the group got together, and she helped the original members come up with a name for the dancers--Ollin is a Nahuatl word that symbolizes the 17th day on the Aztec calendar. “The symbol means movement or motion,” said a company spokesman, “like an earthquake.”

“It’s like a heartbeat,” added Diediker, “anything that has a continuous movement.”

“Continuous movement” is an apt description of Ballet Folklorico Ollin performances, which are always a swirl of skirts and sharp, quick steps. Diediker carefully researches both the costumes and dances done by the group. “As much as possible, we try to present replicas of the dances and costumes found in Mexico,” Diediker said. “It can take two to four years to study and put together the choreography for each region.”

Of course, some compromises have to be made. “We have to use some modern inventions, like Velcro,” Diediker said. “Otherwise the costumes would take hours to put on, and you can’t ask an audience to sit for three hours between numbers while we change.”

In addition to the core group of dancers--who have appeared in a Rose Parade and at the Olympic Arts Festival--there is a senior citizens group and a group for children 5 and older, which rehearse at Las Palmas Park in San Fernando. “Not only do they learn dances,” Diediker said, “they learn makeup and how to prepare for performances. They become totally self-sufficient. It takes some patience on the part of the adults, but I think it’s important for the kids to be exposed to their own culture--and it always helps to have a ready core of understudies.”

Ballet Folklorico Ollin will appear from noon to 3 p.m. Wednesday in the Campus Center at Pierce College, 6201 Winnetka Ave., Woodland Hills; (818) 719-6401; 3 p.m. May 6 at San Fernando Park, 208 Park Ave., San Fernando; (818) 361-7155, and at 10:30 a.m. May 7 at Paxton Park. Performances are free.