October 1, 2002
Contact: Susan Gwynne
(805) 893-2098
e-mail: gwynne-s@sa.ucsb.edu

UCSB Arts & Lectures presents Danza Floricanto—a premier U.S.-based Mexican folk dance troupe—for a week of workshops in Santa Barbara North County schools

Summary Facts:

• Danza Floricanto performs an outreach residency for North County schools
• One of Los Angeles’ premier Mexican folklorico ensembles
• Monday, October 21–Thursday, October 24
• Santa Maria, Guadalupe and Lompoc schools will be visited
• Information: UCSB Arts & Lectures at 893-3535

From October 21 through October 24, Danza Floricanto will perform a series of educational and entertaining lectures, demonstrations and workshops for junior high school and high school students in Santa Barbara’s North County. This residency, presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures, will also feature two evening performances for parents and community members. The four-day outreach will bring enlightening and captivating programs of Mexican culture to 2,000 North County residents.

Danza Floricanto is the oldest operating professional Mexican folk dance troupe in Los Angeles and the only Mexican folk dance touring company native to the United States. The group’s mission is to preserve Mexican culture, validate it as a cultural and artistic expression, and create awareness and appreciation for it through live performance. Danza Floricanto regularly engages in residencies like this one as a way to further its mission. During the four days it will work with students from six schools: Fesler Junior High School, Righetti High School and Santa Maria High School in Santa Maria; McKenzie Junior High School in Guadalupe; and Lompoc Valley Middle School and Lompoc High School in Lompoc.

Danza Floricanto was founded in 1975 by a group of teachers who wanted to provide their students with a living cultural experience. Under the artistic direction of Gema Sandoval, the company presents authentically staged, fully researched and colorfully costumed dances representing the folkloric traditions of 17 different regions of Mexico. The events scheduled for the company’s residency in the North County range from small workshops with beginning dance students to full performances, including one in Guadalupe’s historic Royal Theater that will feature the Righetti High School Marimba Band. This residency is integrated into each school’s curricula through a series of pre- and post-performance activities that stimulate student thinking about cultural production and identity. Linda Denton of the Guadalupe Union School District says, “We are very excited for the performance of Danza Floricante. In an impoverished community of this size our students do not often have the opportunity to experience a performance of this caliber. Many of our students are dancers but have never experienced the atmosphere, color and staging of professional dancers.”

Danza Floricanto has won a prestigious Lester Horton Dance Award for Staging Traditional Dance. Having performed throughout the United States and Mexico, the troupe has won plaudits for a wide repertoire including Si Se Puede—Yes You Can, inspired by Cesar Chavez, a Chicano version of The Nutcracker and a lively suite celebrating Dia de los Muertos. The Los Angeles Times claims that Danza Floricanto’s work “demands new respect for an idiom too often considered solely in terms of local color and audience identity. You could even consider it a sketchbook for a project that might widen the audience for Mexican folklore as Riverdance did for traditional Irish step-dancing.”

This residency by Danza Floricanto is presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures. It is funded in part by the California Arts Council’s Exemplary Arts Education Program. Sponsors include the Historic Santa Maria Inn, UCSB School-University Partnerships, the Santa Barbara County Arts Commission, the City of Guadalupe and Guadalupe Cultural Arts and Education Center and PCPA Theaterfest.

For more information,
call UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535.

Editor: For photos, please call
Susan Gwynne at (805) 893-2098.