2011 Retrospective (Part 1)

As the year wraps up, I am spending a lot of time reflecting on what this year has brought to my life. This is the first in a series of these posts.

This has been an interesting year.

I would never have imagined on 1/1/11 that I would be living in Los Angeles.

I embarked on this year as a fresh college graduate joining the ranks of everyone else, trying to find a job and figure out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I spent about two months applying to jobs, interviewing for some, exploring post-graduate service programs and working on those applications. And a lot, a LOT of folklórico. I went to practice every day to have a concrete reason to get out of the house, and since I didn't really have much else to keep me from going. I also started going to zumba at St. Ed's pretty often (blending in with the students...). In January, I had started Weight Watchers, so the exercise went along with my eating better, and in the first half of 2011, I lost 15 lbs! (It has stagnated since then since I haven't been keeping up with as good exercise/eating habits, but I haven't gained it back either...)

Then came March, and I was hired as a temp at the IRS. One of the most interesting two months of my life. The job was... pretty boring. (I say that if my most boring job of my life is at age 21, then I'm doing pretty good). It was tedious work of opening envelopes, restapling, stamping, paperclipping and filing tax returns. That's what I did for 8 hours a day. And I also worked nights. But it paid well, and it was two blocks from my apartment so I could walk there. (David picked me up at night since it was 12:30 when I got off). And the people I worked with were really, really amazing. Don't miss the job itself, but I do miss those people.

In April, I also participated in the Relay for Life at St. Ed's, especially in honor of my friend Madeleine, whose seventh anniversary of her death passed on on April 28th.

Spirituality Night: Liturgical Dance

Thursday night was my turn to facilitate spirituality night, and I decided to focus on liturgical dance. I have been a dancer my entire life and part of liturgical dance groups since 9 years old.

I started a discussion on any background information my community mates knew about liturgical dance and any experience they had. I then shared a little bit about my experience, and some research I had done. Dance has been a part of Christianity from the beginning; David danced in the Bible. It was during the Reformation that dance and a lot of art got shoved out of the church and it became more of a head-y religion, sometimes at the expense of the body. We are still trying to break out of that hundreds of years later and liturgical dance is one of the ways to show we can still praise God, but in a different way.

In my own life, the church I grew up in had a liturgical dance group, but we only danced in programs outside of the 11:00 Sunday service. And we danced a lot--youth revivals, Easter Program, Christmas Program, Black History program, etc. But it wasn't until Pentacost 2005 that things changed, and we danced in the 11:00 service for the first time. There were only a couple of years I was still there afterwards, but now they are able to dance in the Sunday service often. In my Austin church, I became the choreographer of the liturgical dance group within six months. We danced about once every quarter or semester, depending on the schedule of the dancers and the church.

So, on Spirituality Night, I shared a dance we had done at Mt. Level when I was 13: "Shackles" (MaryMary). I have reused this dance often when sharing liturgical dance with others, because it is fun and simple. Most recently, I taught the girls in Chile on our mission trip in 2009. I showed my community mates that video as well.

We then had a debriefing discussion of how they felt about the dancing as an expression of faith, dancing in the church, what they learned, etc. My community mates were very responsive and totally game for the dancing which I really appreciated :) I enjoyed sharing with them a part of me that is so important. 


I would believe only in a God that knows how to dance.  ~Friedrich Nietzsche

Diez Y Seis de Septiembre

I'm not Mexican. Probably obviously. And full disclosure, I did not know what Diez Y Seis was until Spanish class in high school (I mean, isn't Cinco de Mayo Mexican Independence Day? No? Then... why do we celebrate it...?). It wasn't until I went to St. Ed's that I really understood the holiday fully. You see, Diez Y Seis in 2007 changed my life.

At St. Ed's, because of our very high Mexican-American and Mexican National population, the Mexican holidays are a big deal. There is usually some celebration on campus, and St. Edward's Ballet Folklórico is often part of it. That day in 2007, I happened upon SEU BF dancing and I fell in love with folklórico then and there. I went to the interest meeting, and then started coming to practice. I struggled through the first semester and wasn't sure I wanted to stay at St. Ed's, but folklórico was the thing that made me stay, and it has made all the difference.

Fast forward four years later and three other Diez Y Seis celebrations (all of which I was part of though in 2008 as a photographer due to a sprained ankle), I now live in Los Angeles and work for an after-school program. I wanted to share my love for folklórico with my kids. I hope sometime this year to actually teach a dance, but this time due to lack of space, I had to settle for compiling a video of my different clips of my group dancing interspersed with photos. I wore my practice skirt and folklórico shoes for the program that day. Our crafts were to make maracas and papel picado.

It was a hit. At all times I had 1-4 little girls hanging off my skirt and dancing with it. There was uncooked rice all over the floor from the maracas and pieces of tissue paper from the papel picado. I played the video a few times with mariachi music in the background and every time the kids saw me on the screen, there were excited shouts of "There's Ms. B!" 

Friday was my favorite day in Urban Compass so far :) We had such a wonderful time, and I'm so glad I got to share with the kids about Mexican Independence Day and my love for folklórico.