Caney Creek High School - Costumes and dance shoes

Our Arts Council Micro-Grant allowed the Caney Creek Dance Department to purchase ballroom shoes, Folklorico shoes, and Folklorico outfits for our new Folklorico and Ballroom dance team. With our new purchases, we were able to travel to elementary schools in Conroe ISD to perform for students in celebration of Hispanic culture. In addition to these performances, we had the opportunity to showcase these cultural dances at Conroe KidzFest and at multiple Dancing Thru Life charity events. Due to the purchases made with this grant, interest in our program has increased significantly. We will be more than doubling in size for next school year and will be able to add new dance genres and opportunities for our students next year.

Our students on our team are advanced dance students having been in the dance department for at least two years. I have one senior who was entering her fourth year of dance class and wanted to be brave and try something new, so she chose to move into our Hispanic cultural dance class. After receiving our shoes and skirts in December, we took some of our dancers to perform and compete in a Fred Astaire ballroom competition where they performed the Jarabe Tapatio (the national dance of Mexico) and competed in pairs in salsa, bachata, and merengue. At the end of the semester, I had the students fill out a reflection of how their 2023 had gone. This shy, quiet senior who I had taught for four years said that the thing she was most proud of in her entire year was going to a dance competition and performing with a partner. She went on to say that she felt like she had built such a closer connection to her family and her culture by learning these dances. Her mom and dad came to watch her perform for the first time in four years because they were so excited to see her perform dances from their home state in Mexico. We also noticed the impact we had on our young audiences. When we went to perform at the elementary schools, the many students from Hispanic backgrounds straightened up in their seats, and their eyes shone with excitement as our dancers entered the stage in their outfits. After the performances, the dancers were treated like celebrities with all of the students wanting to talk to them about the dances they had performed and take pictures with them to show their parents that dancers were doing "their dances" at school that day. Our dancers were so proud to spread their heritage across Montgomery County, creating positive cultural connections and building a sense of self through their family history.