Celebrated worldwide for more than 50 years, the Ballet Folklórico de México brings its individual style of ballet to Fairfield University and the Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts on Friday, Sept. 28 at 8 p.m. This is the first of five Dance America presentations in the Quick Center's 2007-08 season. Subscribers to the Dance America series enjoy a 20% discount on tickets.

The enduring power of art, history, culture and traditions imbues Ballet Folklórico de México with a colorful and lasting experience of eternal joy. Founder, choreographer and dancer Amalia Hernández felt, as a child, a vital need to rescue the dancing traditions of México. Her artistic prowess developed and her choreography, so closely entwined with pre-Colombian and later indigenous civilizations, came to reflect the beauty of the Universe in motion. Hernández and her company have always relied on powerful images of Mexican heritage - a México with ears of corn, brown-skinned people, engraved silver; a place of fairs, candy skulls, ancient ruins and gardens of bougainvillea and tropical flowers - for choreographic inspiration.

The 40 unique ballets that were developed over many years for the 76 Ballet Folklórico dancers, embody many of the personality characteristics associated with past centuries of thirty different Hispanic cultures - tame, quiet, wild, incongruous, strident and lighthearted. With vivid music, technical perfection, sophisticated and vibrant wardrobe and original choreographies, the dancers portray, as Hernández writes, "a México of yesterday and today, of beautiful songs and dances, born from ruins in screams, weeping and silence, created between the black braids of the natives."

Tickets are $40, $35, $30 and are available online at www.quickcenter.com or by calling the Box Office at (203) 254-4010. The toll free number is 1-877-ARTS-396. For further information, visit the website at www.quickcenter.com.

Posted On: 08-27-2007 10:08 AM

Volume: 40 Number: 28