Grupo Folklorico Sangre Azteca
The Mexican folk dancing group Sangre Azteca started in March of 2002. Dana and Juan Rodriguez are the Executive and Publicity directors for the group. There are three different groups, the beginners who range in ages six to nine, the intermediate students who are ten to thirteen years old, and the advanced dancers who are fourteen and over. The group has two talented instructors who teach the thirty four dancers. In addition to teaching dancers to appreciate their cultural heritage, there is a lot of community support for them and a lot of encouragement is given to stay in school and attend college. Their beautiful traditional costumes are handmade and come from Mexico. Each type of dance has its own unique costume so some of the dancers will have many dresses and suits. They mostly perform to prerecorded music, but they have occasionally performed to live music played by Mariachi musicians.
Group Folklorico perform at many festivals throughout the year such as the Celebrate Lincoln Ethnic Festival, Cinco de Mayo, and the Grand Island Ethnic Festival as well as the carnival at the Cristo Rey church. Community involvement is very important to them and they devote much of their energy taking their dance into all sorts of communities to share it with as many different people as possible. And they spend a lot of time fundraising and applying for grants to allow them to continue to be a vibrant part of the community. Each year, they raise funds to be able to attend the international conference in Mexico. People from all over the world love Mexican folkdance and it is really wonderful to watch. The group is a member of the National association of Folkloric Groups.
Grupo Sangre Azteca is always looking for more performance venues and they hope to continue to raise enough funds to get a bus that will make it easier for transportation to the many communities they travel to in Nebraska. One of their hopes is to create a tour that they can take to many small communities in Nebraska. Lincoln is very fortunate to have such an asset to their community.
Check out their website at www.proyectocultural.org.
