“Dancing is a total commitment, understanding the basic forms, one frees oneself, it’s something greater than us.”-Gema Sandoval.
Gema Sandoval had just arrived in California, specifically to La Habra. She had left Mexico City with her family, as things weren’t going well in their home country. She had never felt a sense of belonging to the United States; she still felt Mexican.
One day at school, she felt so alone, not talking to anyone. She was still absorbing the English language, and there were no ESL classes at that time, as they were implemented later.
“I was desperate. I sat there not knowing anything, so I scratched on my desk and wrote ‘Mexican Girl,’ which caused quite a stir. The school principal reprimanded me. I think what that girl was trying to do in those years was to say, ‘Here I am,’ she was in her searching phase,” says Gema, founder of the folkloric dance company Floricanto/USA.
Gema Sandoval is an icon of Los Angeles culture. With Floricanto, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary, she has promoted folkloric dance and Mexican roots, but not just that—she has adapted it to Mexican and Chicana communities in the United States. The group has presented progressive, bold proposals, where the experience of dancing becomes a political statement, a representation of the community that sees itself reflected in their work.
“I remember when we crossed the border through Juárez. Once we were near El Paso, my brother started singing… the Mexican National Anthem!!! That was our attitude, never forgetting our roots,” she says.
Despite living most of her life in the U.S., Gema tries to visit Mexico City to recharge, reconnect, learn, and experience her Mexico.
Learning English was a priority, and at home, her father imposed the rule of speaking only English. “And there I was, taking notes,” she says.
Her father worked as a bellboy at a hotel. “We were a lower-middle-class family. He sent all of us to school. That’s why it bothers me when I hear all this discourse about migration. We do the work they don’t want to do,” she adds.
Soon after, the family moved to East L.A., where she felt more at home due to the large Latino population. One day, she had an unpleasant incident at Lincoln High School, and her mother got very upset. She then took her to the Santa Teresita School run by nuns and told them:
“Look, this happened to my daughter at that other school, so I’m bringing her here. If you don’t have space, I also brought a chair.” And she left her there. It was a positive change. The nuns taught me to trust myself, and I was a very good student, I got good grades,” she says.
However, she still felt a lack of connection with Mexican culture. Then, she went on to study at Cal State, and one day, she heard Mexican music coming from one of the classrooms. She peeked in and saw a folkloric dance group led by Emilio Pulido. She expressed interest in joining but was told there was no space, and she had to wait for the next course. But she was already happy—she had found her place.
“At the university, the other students were happy. We didn’t go to their ballet or other typical classes for white students. We had our folkloric dance class, and we didn’t bother anyone. It seemed like we were there because someone was doing us a favor, but not because we had a right to be there,” she remembers.
She then started teaching at a Junior High School in East L.A. as a literature teacher. There were no ESL classes, and she noticed more clearly the distinctions between social classes.
“And then something happened that would change my life and the lives of many others. I realized that Mexican students weren’t attending physical education classes because they were embarrassed to change clothes in a common locker room. I’d see them wandering the halls and ask them, ‘Why aren’t you going to class?’ They’d answer, ‘There’s no place for us to change,’” she says.
So, she went to the principal and proposed offering a folkloric dance class, so the students wouldn’t lose out on education or participation. They were given their first class, and then another. That was the seed from which Floricanto was born.
THE PLEASURE OF DANCING
Gema Sandoval has danced nearly all her life, until her knees no longer allowed her to.
“Dancing is a total commitment, understanding the basic forms, one frees oneself, it’s something greater than us. Dancing, I understood the reason for my birth. It’s more than one, it’s a spiritual transformation,” she says.
Having the foundation of Floricanto also made her realize that she needed more research, knowledge, and practice to share it.
So, she set out to learn about Son Jarocho.
“I went to Veracruz with Quetzal Flores, thanks to a scholarship we received. It was frustrating and very naive to think I could understand Son Jarocho in such a short time. I told Quetzal, totally frustrated, ‘If I had known how difficult it is, how complex it is,’” she recalls.
Quetzal had the solution.
“Don’t worry, we’ll bring César ‘Jarochelo’ Castro to Los Angeles,” he said.
“César, in addition to being talented, an excellent teacher, and a great musician, is very generous, very humble. He has helped us on numerous occasions with various works we’ve staged. I’m immensely grateful to him,” she adds.
She also took other courses with different teachers in Mexico City.
“They were all very kind to us, it didn’t matter that we came from Los Angeles. That experience was rewarding but painful, like drinking cold water—delicious but stinging,” she laughs.
THE EVOLUTION
For Gema, dancing and connecting with the community is a single mission.
“We had to communicate with the community, through our work, our productions. Establish that we no longer belong to Mexico, but we don’t belong to the United States either. We had to do more,” she says.
She set out to bring important works to the stage. Floricanto was the proud recipient of a New England Foundation for the Arts National Dance Project production grant for 2003-04, which allowed them to create Fandango Without Borders. This was followed by Un Zapateado Chicano, funded by the Irvine Foundation’s From Creation to Performance Project and the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture. Her latest production, Alma Llanera-Spirit of the Plains, was inspired by Rudolfo Anaya’s novel Bless Me, Ultima.
“We started to do something mixed, to transmit the political strength of Chicano culture. We began to reveal ourselves politically, and I realized that by extending the zapateado jarocho, we could integrate other types of music. Dance, zapateado, became a political force,” she says.
Little by little, the audience began to digest it.
“Our work wasn’t for the Disneyland crowd,” she says proudly.
Gema worked for a time as a teacher and later spent several years as the director of the Plaza de la Raza.
La Plaza was in a lot of trouble. I was there for about 7 or 8 years,” she says, “but then I returned full-time to my passion—Floricanto.
“We remain at the forefront. Now my daughter is the artistic director. My niece follows her. We are the only ones who have passed on the tradition,” she says.
There are many plans in the works. The group will participate in a movie, but for her, in these aggressive and confusing political times, it is more important than ever to continue the work of connecting with the community.
“We have to keep the doors open, recognize where we come from. We need to empower the Latino community, they have their rights. I thought these times were over, but they’ve returned. We have to be present, keep protesting—they don’t have the right to treat us this way,” she says.
Now that her daughter has taken over the artistic direction, Gema spends much of her time writing. “We need to document the legacy of our work. I sleep like a rock, exhausted,” she says thoughtfully, but ends by saying, “I’m proud, I’m moved to see how a woman passed on her knowledge to her daughter, and she to my granddaughter. I want to believe that the work has worked.”
