EXTRAVAGANZA
Event plays to packed house at Denver Coliseum
Ariana Ramirez, 8, and Shanae Trujillo, 16, watch the 24th Mexican Rodeo Extravaganza on Sunday before performing with the Mexican Folklorica Dancers at the Denver Coliseum during the 112th National Western Stock Show.
Charros and dancers and bulls! Oh, my!
The Mexican Rodeo Extravaganza served up a visual feast — as well as a lesson in Mexican cultural traditions — as it marked its 24th year as part of National Western Stock Show in on Sunday in Denver.
People packed into the Denver Coliseum to take in the show, which blended rodeo standards such as trick riding and mutton busting with distinctly Mexican practices such as horse dancing and El Jarabe Tapatio — known domestically as the Mexican Hat Dance.
Performers dazzled the audience with the “Paso de la Muerte.” The dangerous horseback maneuver requires a charro — a Mexican cowboy — to leap from the back of one galloping horse onto the bare back of another one galloping alongside.
“I really like how the Mexican and American culture come together from the national anthems on,” attendee Hugo Aguina said of Sunday afternoon’s event, the first of two shows the cadre of dancers, singers, bullfighters and others put on at the stock show this year.
Aguina, of Denver, said he has attended the Mexican rodeo with family members for the past four or five years and appreciates how it embraces performers’ heritages and backgrounds. He came for the horse dancing — a charro specialty during which riders get their mounts to prance, strut and otherwise show off their coordination and agility — but enjoyed the bullfighting as well. A pair of bullfighters tantalized a bull with brightly colored capes during the rodeo but skipped the bloodshed that accompanies the sport in other countries.
“It was intense,” Aguina said. A blend of cultures, the rodeo also provided some demonstrations of contrast Sunday. In one moment, a charro rode out to the center of the ring and maneuvered his horse like a sports car, spinning around 360 degrees and riding out of the arena backward. Moments later, another rider was tossed by a bucking bronco within a second of coming out of the chute.
Westminster resident Dominique Rodriguez took her sons Kingston, 2, and Asher, 6 months, to their first stock show this year. They may have been too young to say much about it, but the two boys took in the show with wide-eyed interest.
“It’s their heritage,” Rodriguez said. “Plus (Kingston) wanted to see the animals. We just don’t get to see this much, so we wanted to come to the Mexican rodeo.”
The event was a family affair for some of the performers as well. Jerry Diaz directs the event and is one of its marquee charros. He has been performing at the National Western Stock Show for 33 years, launching the Mexican Rodeo Extravaganza in 1994. He performed riding and trick lasso routines alongside his wife, Staci, and 14year-old son, Nicolas. His ability to spin a lasso around his horse while it was moving at full trot drew plenty of oohs and ahs.
The Diazes value the educational component of what they do, keeping alive Mexican horsemanship traditions that have been passed down through five generations of the family. They perform dozens of shows each year, but the National Western is among their biggest.
“I think that if a person has a passion for anything they do, they should conserve it,” Jerry Diaz said. “The Lord blessed me to go out there and spread this tradition.”
The Mexican Rodeo Extravaganza is done for 2018, but the 112th National Western Stock Show continues through Jan. 21. For a schedule of events, visit nationalwestern.com.