Elderly Folk Dancers Step Back in Time

Strains of Mexican folk songs filled the community hall as the elderly dancers took their positions, slowly shuffling and swaying. They stamped their feet and swirled their skirts. They smiled broadly, sweat trickling down their faces.

The 10 dancers, who rehearse every Monday morning in the large, wooden-beamed hall of the Lincoln Heights Senior Citizens Center, make up a small troupe that diligently practices the art of regional folk dances from Mexico.

Their folklorico group performs traditional pieces from places such as Jalisco, Veracruz and Chiapas. They may not be as flashy and energetic as other, younger groups, those that dazzle audiences with complicated footwork and quick turns. But for these seniors, who make up one of the few elderly folklorico groups in the area, dancing provides a connection to the music of their past, and a grip on a youthful vitality they’re not ready to surrender.

“I tell people, ‘Get out there and move. Live it up while you can,’ ” said Frank Vasquez, who at 91 is the eldest member of the group and its only man. “That’s what I do when I dance.”

A volunteer dance instructor at the center started training the group three years ago. Soon the senior citizens were performing at local schools and small festivals. The last few years, they’ve been invited to the Cinco de Mayo and Mexican Independence Day celebrations at Olvera Street.

They help demonstrate that “the joy of our culture lasts forever,” said Leticia Quezada, president of the Mexican Cultural Institute, which helps organize the festivities. “When we see their youthful spirit . . . it reinforces to us to maintain those cultural traditions.”

Last week, the group performed in a Hispanic Heritage Month celebration sponsored by the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The women, dressed in brightly colored dresses, beamed as they swirled their skirts. Vasquez tipped his hat as he shuffled and skipped.

“It’s so unique that as we’re going into the 21st century, here are these seniors keeping their culture alive,” said Grace Pacheco, an INS employee who organized the event. “They’re dancing with all this orgullo [pride].”

Many of the dancers who grew up in Mexico said being in the folklorico group has triggered memories of their childhoods.

Maria Santana remembers the beautiful dresses her mother bought for her to dance in at the local festivals in Guadalajara, where she lived until she was 23.

“I participate for the children, so they don’t forget their Mexican culture,” said Santana, 66, a retired salesclerk. “We want them to know this gift from our ancestors.”

The women who dance together are now like sisters, she said, who swap stories about their families and doctors and coping with old age.

“I hope we always stay together, that we always keep dancing, till we’re 100,” Santana added.

When the seniors started practicing, they moved hesitantly, restrained by the unfamiliarity of the moves and the joint pain of old age. But as they rehearsed, the dancers say, they became accustomed to the steps. And something else happened.

“All of us who participate have been changed in some way,” said Lucia Morales, 67. “When I’m out there, I forget about all the pain I have. I’m so happy.”

When Morales joined the group three years ago, she was depressed by the recent death of her mother and drained after 30 years of caring for her. A former teacher’s aide, Morales came to the center looking to be part of a group.

The music and the companionship “changed my life,” she said. Now, if her son can’t come visit her, she doesn’t get depressed. Instead, she thinks about the next rehearsal.

“I’m more positive,” she said. “The world seems more brilliant now, like before it was like night, and now it is day.”

Morales said now she wants to start taking singing and guitar lessons and maybe join a mariachi group as well.

“It’s about learning to live again,” she said.

Blanca Flores, the volunteer teacher who started the troupe, said that when the seniors dance “they feel 15 years old, not 50 or 60 or 70. It’s therapy for them.”

The dancers were so excited that they all sewed their first outfits themselves. Since then, they’ve bought professional, matching costumes decorated with ribbons and lace.

Even illness has not held them back from performing.

Three years ago, just after the group began, Natalie Martinez was chatting with some of the other women during a rehearsal when she suddenly collapsed.

“My heart just stopped,” said Martinez, 79. “I was deathlike.”

After two weeks in a coma, she slowly recovered. Her friends brought her chicken and soup as she recuperated at home, and begged her to come back to the dance group.

Go ahead, the doctor told her. The exercise will do you good.

So there she was on a recent morning, gingerly tapping her feet and gracefully waving her arms as she practiced the moves.

“I’ll probably die soon,” she said, “but I’m doing something I like.”