Eight couples from BYU’s International Folk Dance Ensemble spent the weekend of Jan. 18 in Texas reuniting, celebrating and performing with the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley’s Ballet Folklórico.
The Ballet Folklórico is a nationally and internationally recognized Mexican Folklórico company based in South Texas. In December 2023, the International Folk Dance Ensemble invited the dance group to perform at BYU’s annual “Christmas Around the World” performance. They formed valuable bonds as they collaborated on a dance piece and shared cultural values with each other and the audience.
This year, the Ballet Folklórico flipped the invitation and featured BYU's ensemble in their annual show, “Huateque.” On Saturday night, the two cultural dance groups shared the stage once again and performed the same dance that brought them together in celebration and fellowship just over a year ago.
“It was awesome,” Levi Hancock, a third-year member of the International Folk Dance Ensemble and senior at BYU, said. “It felt like a repeat of doing Christmas Around the World last year — this collaborative effort, rehearsing together, like rebuilding all the bonds and connections we had made with them last year.”
Their dance piece combined American clogging, a type of folk dance characterized by percussive footwork, and Mexican zapateado, a style of Mexican footwork or tap dancing. The International Folk Dance Ensemble spent the weeks leading up to the show rehearsing on their own in Provo, then participated in a joint rehearsal with Ballet Folklórico just a few hours before the performance began.
While “Huateque” primarily concentrates on showcasing Mexican dance styles, this year’s show also featured other cultural dances from BYU's ensemble, some of which include their Polish, Brazilian, Indian, Canadian and Slovakian pieces.
“We love the Texan crowd and there were a lot of people just from the community, so it was a great performance,” Nate Cox, a third-year member of BYU's International Folk Dance Ensemble, said.
Both Hancock and Cox said one of the most memorable parts of their weekend in Texas was the time spent with the other dancers outside of rehearsals and performances. The day after the show, members of the Ballet Folklórico invited BYU dancers to a potluck, where each ballet member brought a Mexican dish to share. The potluck, however, eventually broke out into a cultural dance party — members of the ballet taught the BYU dancers how to salsa, and the BYU ensemble members showed the ballet how to line dance.
“What I think is so wonderful is that these students relate to each other because they're all undergraduate students at a university setting studying cultural dance,” International Folk Dance Ensemble artistic director Jeanette Geslison said. “And so that gives them a lot to talk about with each other.”
Though states away, dancers from both groups continue to stay in contact and deepen their friendships made possible through cultural dance.
Cox said he cherishes the friendships he has made and talks to the Ballet Folklórico dancers regularly, sharing videos and dances with them throughout the year.
“As one of the dancers, JJ, says, ‘It’s never goodbye. It’s just see you later,’” Cox said.