Ballet Folklorico De Veracruz

This is going to get very long.

14th September 2006, Thursday

Another Exxonmobil Campus Concert at 7.30pm. This time round it's a Mexican group called Ballet Folklorico De Veracruz. It's my first time attending a performance involving any sort of dance. Not sure if you could call them a dance group although they dance because it's really more of a celebration of their culture. They are really great though! Here's a brief idea of who they are:

BALLET FOLKLORICO DE VERACRUZ
From the Industrial School "Concepcion Quiros Perez" of Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico. Institution of Arts and Offices with 125 years of tradition.

The Folklore Ballet of Veracruz has been awarded with the State Prize for the Merit to the Dance, which is given by the government of the State of Veracruz, the Sports National Commission and the Mexican Ministry of Culture and Education; and has also turned into one of Mexico's representative of culture overseas. They have traveled extensively and bagged several accolades over the years.

This Mexican group aims to showcase their culture to the world audience. With a sense of pride of their roots, they guarantee the best of Mexican ethnic music and dance.

So I guess they are considered a dance group. I got a taste of how mexican festivals and dances are like - very lively, fun and very colourful. Got audience participation too. I was scared to death that they'd pull me up on stage. Shall I start from the first dance?

The first dance is called Danzas De Concheros. It's a traditional dance complete with colourful traditional robes, head-dress and incense. Yes, you read that right - incense burning in the relatively small UCC theatre. Perhaps what this mexican woman sitting 2 seats away from me said would give you an idea of what it's like: "If I saw this in a desert, I would wet my pants."
I found it quite interesting, though. It's actually a dance in their ancient society, a means to communicate with their gods. In the programme booklet there are several lines under this title like "Drums Introduction - Snails", "White Eagle", "Ceremonial to a new 'conchero'", "Clearing the space of bad spirits" etc. I'm not sure why it's there, but I guess it is to give us an idea on what the dance is about. So yes, there really was something like a ceremony going on, with the person lying on the ground, the dancers all serious, bringing out the incense, bringing it over the man's body and all that. All starting with and ending with a marvellous dance, perfectly coordinated. Halfway through they'll shout or call out. And in a way this first traditional dance was a wonderful way to start the whole thing (actually I liked this first one the best because it was serious), clearing the space of bad spirits, hoping that it would be a successful evening, giving it a beginning, if you all get what I mean.
Alright if you all want to know, I was actually shocked at the kind of dance I saw. I didn't expect anything like that. I was expecting classical dance. What's a layman who have had no prior experience to watching dance suppose to think when she sees the word "ballet" in the title?

Danzas De Concheros

The 2nd dance called Alegria Yucateca gave us an idea of the type of dance we were to expect for the rest of the evening. Simply put, it's called "The Women that puts on make up" (as printed in phamplet) and "El Torito (the small bull)". There was only the female and 2 other males. The 2 males were trying to win the lady's favour, if I don't remember wrongly. So they dance, complete with heel banging, tap-dancing-like steps. It was marvellous watching how they coordinate, watching the way they bang their feet. It was even more marvellous when they put beer bottles (for the males) and an entire tray with glasses and bottles (for the lady) on their heads and started to dance like nobody's business. Though one of the man did drop his bottle, he picked it up, put it back and continued the dance. I thought the female was great with her tray. In the later part, imagine a bull fight, only that the bull was in the form of a lady in red on heels who dances beautifully and her horns were her hands. If you will pull out from your mind any idea on how mexicans in shows dress, you will know how the lady looked like.

Dance number 3 shows a wedding. The girl is pretty. I vaguely remember they have this long cloth thingy on sticks which men carried around. It reminded me of dragon dance.

I think this one is one scene from the wedding dance.

Dance 4: Danza De Los Viejitos De Jaracuraro. I love this one! It starts off with a dancer dressed like an old man (as it should be - it is the nature of the dance for dancers to do so) appearing when the wedding moves backstage, waving bye. He was bent, wore an "old man" mask, had a colourful cloth around his shoulders and carried a cane. He looked shocked to see us, pointed to us, looked at the mexican band lined up at the back of the stage and using body language, asked what the heck or who the heck were we. At sometime he laid down on the stage, placed his hat on the girl in the front row. He turned back, beckoned one of the men in the back to come forward and together with him, pulls the girl onstage. The man proceeds to act as if to walk off with the girl but the old man pulls her back. It's hilarious! You've got to watch it if you can. At times during the dance they dance so lively and then at other sections they have got a sudden bout of athritis or something. There is even a section where one of the old men (a group of them came out later on) actually fell off the stage and scared those in front. By the way, those in the front row were really right in front of the stage. Hell, if one of the dancers forgot to wash his/her feet, they'd have been able to smell it.

The "old men"

The other dances were all about the same style - heel banging, typical mexican dances, complete with full swirly colourful skirts that the ladies pinch at the sides and hold straight up. I thought pictures would do a better job.


Those are NOT scenes taken exactly from UCC. The stage at UCC is much smaller and there are no background props, but I guess the dances and costumes are more or less the same. It made me realize just how much they had to compromise dancing on that tiny stage, reminds me of when we do shows impromptu.

The dances are very lively, they'd hoot and call and shout while dancing, I suppose in an attempt to get us to clap and whistle, hoot and shout along. Well, I'd have to say that us Singaporeans lot are a lot more difficult to rouse. I think they got tired of smiling at the end and shouting and all that though they still maintained their smiles as brilliantly as they could. It's not a choice, it's part of professionalism. I have done shows before and I know how it feels like. It's awfully difficult to keep smiling and being high when your audience is kind of quiet. You could sense the tiredness and lack of eagerness in the dancers at the end of the show that night. I think they were depending on us to shout, whistle and clap too so that they wouldn't have to do it so much, but since we didn't, they had to keep on doing it. Plus they didn't have our enthusiasm to feed on. I found it odd, doing all those in a theatre. Afterall, the theatre is a formal place. But we can't blame them because the dances are really festival dances and so were supposed to be loud and fun. We did clap along at some sections but they never lasted long. There was a mexican lady in front of me and 2 seats away who was very lively, clapping, shouting and bouncing in her seat (yes I was seated beside an entire group of mexicans and their non-mexican friends. One of the mexicans was my tutor for CNM last semester.) I pitied the dancers who were trying very hard but it was very difficult for me to suddenly jump up and start shouting and jumping around =P Psychology - Group conformity. We did gave them a very loud applause at the end, though. We always do at the end of a dance, just not during it. =)

Then at the end they came off-stage and pulled some up to dance and then subsequently went on stage, forming a long line, snaking across the stage, curling everywhere. Luckily I didn't get pulled up.

Oh some of the ladies were really very pretty and very tall. There were also some positions at the end of the dances where it looked as if the pairs of male-female dancers were going to kiss. I wondered if the men were ever tempted to do so and if they ever did.

This is a very long entry and a very outdated one. =)