Cinco de Mayo dance party bringing food, musicians to the Count Basie in Red Bank

RED BANK - The Count Basie Center for the Arts will host a Cinco de Mayo Dance Party for all ages on Sunday, May 5, at the Vogel.

“We’re really excited,” said Adriana Medina Gomez, director of community engagement for the nonprofit. “For years the Basie Center has celebrated our Cinco de Mayo with performances at the theater.”

This year they are mixing it up with a tardeada, a community dance party. Doors open at 5 p.m. and there is a suggested donation of $10.

“A tardeada is a celebration that is traditionally all over Mexico,” Medina Gomez said. “It happens on the weekends at plazas and town centers. It’s where communities come together, whether it’s after work or after church.”

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She said people would congregate in the late afternoon and eat elotes and tacos and dance to local musicians.

“It becomes a community celebration,” she said. “And that’s usually what Cinco de Mayo is in Mexico.”

Cinco de Mayo is a holiday that celebrates Mexico’s victory at the Battle of Puebla.

Medina Gomez said the Basie decided on hosting a dance party with local musicians and vendors because “more than anything, I think the biggest takeaway is to uplift the diversity in our community and to really find a way to see each other on a human basis, (to) know each other’s culture and walk away with a newfound respect for the diversity.”

When putting together the event, Medina Gomez said she reached out to community leaders and schools to spread the word that the Basie was looking for local musicians and vendors.

“The response was overwhelming,” she said.

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The musicians include DJ Magic One of Red Bank, Osmar Duque y Su Atractivo Sierreño of Freehold, Sonido Karabana & Danjey and Palomo Rios. The latter two musicians have performed at venues all over New Jersey. Music will range in genre from Latin hits to banda, cumbia and mariachi.

Food vendors include Azteca Grill of Red Bank, La Mixteca of Lakewood, Tic Taco Taqueria and Mayan Restaurant of Asbury Park. There will also be venders selling artisanal items.

The Basie hosts Mexican folkloric dance classes on Saturdays with teachers from the New York nonprofit Calpulli Mexican Dance Company. Students from those classes will be performing at the event.

Two other recently confirmed dance companies will also be joining the event. Kalpulli Huehuetlahtolli and Danza Azteca Nahui Ollin Teotl will be performing an Aztec ritual.

Medina Gomez said that in conversations with the dance companies, it was stressed that their performance would be a sacred ritual that “goes beyond dancing.”

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In an email, Medina Gomez expanded, “This ritual serves as a grounding moment, allowing people to connect with the land and acknowledge the energy of all things that surround us. The specific dance they will do is meant to be a moment of inner cleansing and spiritual healing that will lead to a deep human connection and honors identity, and culture. We are thrilled to have them as part of our celebration.”

Medina Gomez said the goal was to have an authentic, cultural event open to all ages and anyone who wants to join.

She said, “It’s really important for us to have these types of celebrations and for our community … to have a sense of ownership in the process of the planning and the curating of these events.”

Olivia Liu is a reporter covering transportation, Red Bank and western Monmouth County. She can be reached at oliu@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Count Basie in Red Bank hosts Cinco de Mayo dance party