The Future and the Folkloric Troupes

It seems like a pastoral enough Saturday afternoon in Lincoln Heights.

But, while families stroll through a park on Mission Road, 20 sweaty and gasping Mexican folkloric dancers pound the floor at a nearby rehearsal room in Plaza de la Raza as if their lives depended on the thundering echo their heels make with each percussive bam! slam!

In many ways, their lives do. These mating dances, each representing a different region in Mexico, are not cutsey Mexican hat dances or even outdated rituals that symbolize the greatness of Mexican history.

They are life sustaining to young men like dancer Oscar Salas who walk a cultural tightrope between identity and assimilation as Mexican-Americans.

Salas is one of the leaders of L.A.’s most established folkloric company, Floricanto Dance Theater. The troupe was co-founded by Gema and Frank Sandoval, and Juanita Lopez 14 years ago.

Floricanto’s repertory can be seen Saturday at Santa Monica College Amphitheater. Dances from the regions of Veracruz, Jalisco and Guerrero--as well as those from the Conchero Indian tradition--will be performed to live music accompaniment.

“For us, maintaining our cultural traditions is a political statement,” director Gema Sandoval says as the grueling five-hour rehearsal winds down. “Our roots determine our future,” she says. “We, as Mexican-Americans, are strong now because we know where we come from.”

Sandoval speaks of a time when her people’s identity was less established. As a college student 20 years ago, she remembers being “transformed” when angry students walked out of East L.A.’s Lincoln High School, protesting Anglo oppression as well as the lack of any culturally sensitive education.

“We had to look within for inspiration, rather than outside to Mexico or Anglo-American culture,” says Sandoval, referring to the creative potential she felt percolating in East L.A. during the Chicano movement in 1969.

Chicano activists demanded that folklorico be taught in East L.A.’s public schools to give students there a sense of history and, according to Sandoval, “a sense of their own Americanness. After all, this region was part of Mexico before 1848.”

Sandoval became one of the more influential of those teachers and many of her students dance with her now.

“For us who had gone through college and seen the light,” she says, referring to the empowering effect of the Chicano movement, “art was a great tool. The birth of the modern folkloric movement could not have happened without Chicano activism.

“And when, with the help of my teacher, Raphael Zamarripa, we finally realized in the early ‘70s that we didn’t require validation from Mexico, our dancing really took off.” Then, Los Angeles boasted 200 Mexican folklore companies; now it has only a handful.

Floricanto is one company that has more than just survived. Its budget is close to $80,000, and this year the troupe has received grants from the California Arts Council Touring Program and the Western States Arts Foundation.

How does Sandoval explain her company’s success?

“While we treat our company like a business, and pay our dancers, I believe that our growth can also be attributed to our political sensibility,” she says.

“I think that we as artists struggle with the notion that, because we are American, our dominant culture is European. I think the real challenge now is to explore what is indigenous--and consequently, American--to us.”

Sandoval’s point is that “folklorico, as it’s practiced and explored in this country,” is no longer Mexican.

“We Chicanos are Americans,” she adds, “and the styles and the significance of our dances have evolved in this country so much so that they have become American.”

Sandoval believes that folklore academics who stress authenticity over spontaneity should stick to their books.

“They are out of touch with the families who dance for recreation--or in the case of the Conchero Indians, who see dance as a form of prayer,” she says.

She hopes that Anglo audiences view her work with this more multicultural mind set: “that these dancers are our American brothers and sisters enriching us with their tradition. And because it’s theirs, it’s ours, too.”

Sandoval has recently applied this perspective to her new marketing strategy: She’s changed the troupe’s name from Floricanto Dance Theater to Danza Floricanto U.S.A. , emphasizing both the strong Latino and American identities of her company.

“It’s no secret that we cultivate our Mexican traditions with more fervor than do some of our relatives who visit us from down South,” she explains, while observing a male soloist during a Guerrero dance dive down to the floor to grab a scarf in his teeth.

“But in L.A. we have some very explosive realities molding our art,” she admits.

“According to conservative statistics, 75% of the total school population will be Latino by the year 2000. Those folks will one day be our caretakers. And if we don’t go out of our way to make those kids feel that they have a place in our sun, they will have a very good opportunity to stick it to us.”

She laughs. “There are a lot of ways to give kids a sense of cultural ownership--our way is through dance and virtuosity.

“There’s both mystical and political talk about L.A. being the place where all the disparate cultures meet and become one,” she says.

“Of course that idea meets up with a lot of resistance. But I have a fair amount of optimism. I just look at some of my dancers, people like Oscar Salas, and I shudder at the power of art to cause change.”