On Monday, Oct. 18 at 6:30 p.m., Thomas plaza filled up with students, community members, and the wonderful aroma of fresh Papusas. The night proceeded to be full of dancing and beautiful music. The event, Peña Folklórica, was part of a two-event sequence planned collectively by the Spanish department for cultural composition class assignments.
Originally, Spanish professor Maria Esther Showalter was planning on sending a video to students for their cultural composition assignments, but CJP student and conversation partner Jose Juan Hernandez-Urueta proposed hosting the events. He brainstormed five different events, and Showalter chose two for the department to work together on. One of those events was Peña Folklórica, a name familiar particularly in Bolivia. “When you think of Peña Folklórica, you immediately associate that with music from the Andes,” explained Showalter. Luckily, Hernandez-Urueta knew the perfect band.
“The band that played that night,” explained Hernandez-Urueta, “is a group of friends and neighbors who generally meet to sing and share, always bringing to the place the culture and practices that in our countries we live day by day.” All of the band members have been students or have taught at EMU. Hernandez-Urueta knew an event with a band like this would be the perfect way for students to experience the differences and similarities in Latin American cultures.
One EMU student that volunteered to help students appreciate these similarities and differences of Latin American cultures was junior Jessica Granados Fuentes, who put in hours of hard work to choreograph a dance with sophomore Jennifer Granados Fuentes, Junior Bri Garcia-Sanchez, and first-year Dayana Duarte-Ascensio.
The group used their previous experiences with Latin American dance to blend six different types of Latin American dance into one number: Bachata, Merengue, Cumbia, Duranguense, and Zapateado. Since the Granados Fuentes sisters and García-Sánchez are both culturally from Mexico, they were familiar with the Duranguense and the Zapateado and taught the styles to Duarte-Ascensio, who is culturally from El Salvador. “She was excited to learn, and we were excited to share that part of our culture with her,” explained Granados-Fuentes.
The event, as a whole, was the result of quality teamwork. Jose Juan imagined the night, Spanish professors such as Maria Esther and Wendell Shank helped coordinate the night, language department staff such as Stephanie Mason and Maria Menjivar helped with marketing and thinking through details, and EMU staff Clay Showalter and Shannon Dove made lighting possible. As a culmination of this teamwork, more than 140 people from the EMU community were able to enjoy the event.
In the midst of Latin American Heritage Month, the event felt quite timely. “It was really very nice to be able to have so many members of the EMU community in a single space that undoubtedly included a traditional and cultural practice in Latin peoples such as the greeting to each cardinal point, to the universe, to the earth,” explained Hernandez-Urueta, “this without a doubt was something special that made us feel in one body.” Without a doubt, indeed, the Spanish department’s hard work helped create an exciting setting for the EMU community to appreciate the beauty Latin American culture has to offer.
