A beautiful dance: Ballet Folklorico Sierra Linda ready for busy season

Ballet Folklorico Sierra Linda will be in high demand this Cinco de Mayo season. That means dance instructor Yvonne Sweeney and her 36 students are busy preparing for their chances to showcase their dance moves all over Tulare County.

“We perform all year,” Sweeney said. “When we first started, we only performed a couple of times around Cinco de Mayo. Slowly, we started getting more and more requests for performances so we do it all year. We’ve been known to do nine shows around Cinco de Mayo. We have 11 performances between now and June.”

Ballet Folklorico Sierra Linda performs at the Tulare swap meet the first Sunday of each month, it performs on Dia de los Ninos, on Dia de los Muertos, on Cinco de Mayo in Dinuba and Tulare, at health fairs and festivals in Visalia.

Sweeney has been teaching ballet folklorico for 18 years. She is currently teaching her dance classes every Saturday out of the Fit Warriors Gym located at 1525 S. Mooney Boulevard in Visalia. While 36 students may seem like a full class, Sweeney said she is always open to adding more dancers.

“I have a policy that they need to come watch rehearsal first and decide if it’s for you,” Sweeney said. “We only have one day where we practice so come watch and check out my teaching style.”

One would be hard-pressed to find a better deal for aspiring dancers than what Ballet Folklorico Sierra Linda offers. Sweeney has never raised her rates, charging students $25 per month to train and perform for her group. She welcomes students starting at age five.

“I have not raised tuition ever,” she said. “You can’t find that anywhere. My only requirement is that you buy dance shoes. You need to watch first before you buy anything or do anything. Come watch, see if you like it and then invest in shoes.”

Ballet folklorico is Mexican folk dancing, representing the cultures of different regions of the country. Sweeney said she teaches dances from 11 different regions of Mexico.

Children from all over Tulare County have joined Ballet Folklorico Sierra Linda. Sweeney said she has students from Visalia, Tulare, Woodlake, Exeter, Farmersville, Ivanhoe and Cutler.

More: Ballet Folklorico gets grant to keep traditions alive in Visalia

Exeter High School senior Ava Navarro joined Sweeney’s dance group about a year ago because she wanted to feel more connected with her culture. She said she is grateful for the opportunity to dance because not everyone has a chance to do it, and she loves learning from Sweeney.

“She’s very dedicated,” Navarro said. “She puts time into each of her students. She does this for little to no money so you know that all her work is coming out of her love for the art of it.”

Sweeney, 53, has been teaching for 18 years but has been dancing since her days at Woodlake High School. Born in San Jose, Sweeney moved with her family to Woodlake when she was five or six years old, she said. She has been there ever since, raising a family of her own in a community she loves dearly.

“I just love our little town,” Sweeney said. “I’m so proud of it. I love that we’re a community where you know everybody. I’m a Woodlake High graduate, my husband graduated from there, my children graduated from there and my son is a senior there. I love our town activities like our football games and the rodeo, which is like a high school reunion and I love that.”

Sweeney started dancing her freshman year at the high school. She said there was really no dance instructor. The older students taught the younger students and that’s how they learned. It wasn’t until her friend Lisa Perez started dancing with an adult class and invited Sweeney to join that she received professional instruction.

“She invited me to go with her and I said, ‘sure,’” Sweeney said. “That’s how we started. It was called Dia del Sol and then we merged with another group out of Los Angeles and danced for a few years there.”

Sweeney said she had the opportunity to dance all over California, but one of her favorite memories was to dance in front of Pope John Paul II at Dodger Stadium.

Dance was always a big part of Sweeney’s life, but teaching dance wasn’t something she really envisioned. Sweeney said a friend asked her to teach a group of children and she really wasn’t feeling it because it had been so long since she was involved in dance. She started a class with six to eight kids. She didn’t really know what she was doing so she did some research and taught the kids three dances to perform at a recital for their parents. Then Perez said she would help and they would do workshops to work on instruction and dances. Eighteen years later, Sweeney is still teaching her students at Ballet Folklorico Sierra Linda and Perez is now the dance teacher at Woodlake High School.

“It’s funny because it’s like one day I woke up and realized, ‘wow, my whole family does this,’” Sweeney said. “My husband shared our wedding anniversary with our shows because it's at the end of April and that’s when we really get busy.”

Sweeney has three children and they were all involved in dance. Her youngest, Mitchell Sweeney, is a senior at Woodlake High School and dances for the school. Yvonne’s granddaughter Rebecca Corona is also at the high school and dances.

“There’s a joke in my family where they say nothing comes before dance,” Yvonne said. “It is a big part of our life. Every room in my house has some dance-related article in it.”

Yvonne has some big plans for the future of Ballet Folklorico Sierra Linda. She hopes to add another day of instruction but would need to find another location to teach. She mentioned Exeter as a possibility. She also hopes to get her non-profit status.

“That’s my goal now that my kids are grown,” she said. “I have more time. I’d just like to keep going.”

In the meantime, Yvonne wants to encourage more and more children to join her ballet folklorico group. She says it can be a big commitment, but it is worth it.

“If you would’ve told me 20 years ago, ‘you’re going to work every Saturday,’ I would have said, ‘no way,’” Yvonne said. “Now I can’t wait to get here.”

Information

Ballet Folklorico Sierra Linda practices on Saturday at Fit Warriors Gym at 1525 S. Mooney Boulevard in Visalia. Dues are $25 per month. For more information, contact Yvonne Sweeney at (559) 901-6240 or visit the dance group’s Facebook page Ballet Folklorico Sierra Linda or Instagram @bfsl2006.

This article originally appeared on Salinas Californian: A beautiful dance: Ballet Folklorico Sierra Linda ready for busy season