Peñasco Schools to host Baile event to highlight heritage
The Peñasco Independent School District will be hosting a Baile event on March 23, the first dance in their gymnasium in two years, to celebrate the cultural heritage of Northern New Mexico.
Michael Noll, the community coordinator at the elementary school in Peñasco, put the event together with the intention of reconnecting students with their cultural surroundings. The school will be welcoming Lone Piñon, a string band that plays historic folk music from the Northern New Mexico region. The event will begin with a dance workshop, where dance instructor Lucy Salazar will be teaching traditional Northern New Mexico dance steps before a break, followed by the dance itself. Food and snow cones will be available.
The dance is part of an initiative from the New Mexico Humanities Council and will therefore exhibit Peñasco’s humanitarian classes. Students in a culinary class will be preparing the event’s food, the mariachi class will perform and the entire night will be documented by students in the school’s journalism course. According to Noll, it’s the first New Mexico Humanities Council Baile event to be held north of Santa Fe.
The elementary literacy and math night is happening simultaneously, where Cipriano Vigil will be performing a few songs. Noll hopes people will make the time to go back and forth between each event.
“In Peñasco and Taos and Dixon there’s a really long and deep history and culture of dancing and celebrating,” Noll said, “and some of that is getting forgotten, as traditions sometimes do. COVID didn’t help that because people couldn’t gather, so it’s a way to acknowledge the rich cultural history that our communities have and a way to get families and students engaged in those things.”
Noll added that everyone is invited to the gathering, noting that Twirl Taos will be present to keep smaller children occupied. To Noll, having a Taos organization present is an open invitation to their northern neighbors, whom he hopes will join them the night of the event.
“It’s a way for us to meet one of the things that our board has wanted to see happen for a long time, which is re-engaging kids in our community’s rich culture,” Noll said. “It’s also a community event, so we’re going to have three or four generations here, dancing together and having fun.”
According to Noll, students and community members alike are excited for the event, as COVID forced a hiatus on dances and similar events at Peñasco for two years, putting a strain not only on students’ social lives but also the cultural traditions that have such a strong lineage throughout the region. Noll hopes it will become a recurring event.