Dancing with the soul

By JAMES BARRERA / Special To Vida En El Valle

(Published Wednesday, March 19th, 2008 09:42AM)

SACRAMENTO -- On a recent Thursday evening, the teacher led a contingent of 11 advanced dancers (six men, five women) through a series of side stretches, stomach crunches and push-ups. Pulsing Latin music kept the energy level high and the group in rhythm.

The music ranged from Ozomatli and Calle 13 to good, old thumping disco. The dancers ranged from late teens to mostly 20-something adults. Two in their early 40s bust out a few moves the youngsters haven't perfected yet.

Meet Roxana Reyes Borrego, the 36-year-old artistic director of Raíces de Mi Tierra (Roots of My Land) and the Sacramento Cultural Arts Center. With a dancer's silky grace, she glides across the raised tarimba wood floor in the center's main room.

She exudes a mix of charm and warmth. She is at once elegance, self-deprecating humor, flirtatiousness, feistiness, nurturing mother and teacher. And she always leads with that bewitching edgy intelligence.

A certified Turbo kickboxing instructor, she puts those high kicks to good use here. She does a series of full push-ups with the guys. The rest of the women do the modified "female" version using their knees as a base. There are a number of disapproving grunts from the group. She teasingly urges them on: "We can do this, or we do more sit-ups."

The dancers can't keep up with her version of a Marine boot camp. One male dancer walks off the floor for a quick water break. He leans over and whispers, "This is nothing. These are just the warm-ups!"

Borrego does watch out for the dancers' health.

"The floor gives, and not the dancers' knees," she explains. "Too many folk dancers have spent years practicing in garages or school assembly rooms with concrete floors. This ruins the knees. The tarimba greatly lessens the chance for injury to the performer. Also, this better enables the dancers to improve their zapateados because they can feel and hear the acoustics."

Dancing since young

Borrego has come a long way from growing up in the La Loma neighborhood of East Bakersfield. Her mother, Myrna Garza, was a folkloric dance instructor at Jefferson Elementary School; her father, Paul Reyes, was a musician. She took up ballet folklórico at age 5.

"Growing up in Bakersfield was as much an inspiration as it would be if I grew up in México," recalls Borrego. "In the small barrio where my home was, I often woke to the sounds of the roosters crowing or the horn of the panadería truck selling fresh pan dulce!"

Her grandmother lived a half-block away.

"I would walk over to her house and smell all the foods being crafted in the kitchens along the way," said Borrego. "And talk about a neighborhood that liked to celebrate! There was always a mariachi or banda to be heard on the weekends for one reason or another."

Borrego would practice her dancing under the tables of wherever she happened to be sitting and "even in my mind as I drifted off to sleep to the sounds of my dad's mariachi."

The party ended abruptly when her parents divorced when she was 6. She cut off her folk dance and mariachi practices. It was too painful for her.

It was not until college that she returned to her cultural roots. At 19, she became a student instructor at UC Davis for Danzanztez de Alma. She also taught at Chico State and Sacramento State, as well as with the groups Sol de México and Ballet Folklórico Nube de Oro. She mastered her dance with well-known instructors like María Luisa Colmenárez-García, Rafael Zamarripa, Armando Correa, Antonio Rubio Sagamaga and Juan Arenas García.

Borrego earned her bachelor's degree at UC Davis, and her master's at Sacramento State.

She met her husband, José Borrego, at UC Davis.

Center established in 2004

The Sacramento Cultural Arts Center, which she and her husband opened four years ago, brings together the disciplines of ballet folklórico, salsa, Hawaiian, flamenco and modern ballet. The center houses seven dance groups: Raíces De Mi Tierra, Nube De Oro, Movimiento Ballet Latino, Azteca Quetzalcóatl, La Evolution Salsa, the Afro-Cuban group Lions Den Entertainment, and, the clogging group Aftershock.

Raíces De Mi Tierra has won three back-to-back slots in the prestigious San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival and will return for a fourth time in June.

The center was honored as best nonprofit organization by the Sacramento Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. She will be an audition judge for the 2008 Sacramento World Music and Dance Festival and will return as dance committee chair for the 2008 Festival de la Familia.

"Roxy does a good job in directing traffic with these arts groups," said her husband. "That's one of her strengths. This requires a strong vision. She doesn't judge people. She brings them together to agree on goals and objectives."

Others think highly of Roxana.

"She transitions back and forth from director to performer. She's always right dead center of the action," said Jennifer Andreas Porras, an arts educator who met Roxana almost 10 years ago while presenting a play at UC Davis. "With Roxana, there is no ego. She doesn't set barriers with art genres."

Irma Abella, artistic director of Nube de Oro, said Borrego has an understanding of what people want and need artistically.

"People don't realize all the things she does: the grant writing, finding performance venues, exploring other opportunities," said Abella.

Porras said the Borregos are willing to keep the traditional folklórico form, but "are also willing to expand and breath new life into the material."

When Raíces lead dancer Emilio Ruiz approached Borrego about putting together the Chiapas choreography for the group's audition at the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival, she encouraged him to pursue his vision. Ruiz visited Chiapas, interviewed folk dance authorities, verified historical and cultural information, and even bought the costumes.

Borrego contributed her expertise to make the piece fit the time and technical requirements for the audition.

Borrego has worked as a consultant with the Sacramento Ballet, performed in a music video for the Sacramento punk rock band Red Tape, and taken dancers for a cruise ship performance.

The music video, she said, "was definitely unlike anything I've ever done before. Artistically, it was very exciting. We were sailing into uncharted waters."

Focus on culture, not money

Borrego is a certified marriage family therapist, but has chosen to focus her energy on the center and dancing.

"I talk with the dancers a little bit about health and happiness," said Borrego. "This is our happy place. This is where we rejuvenate one another, a place in which to go forward into your work week and life. It's a life-long process. I see a lot of personal and social problems are based on self-esteem issues. My master's thesis was art as therapy: the benefit of ethnic identification development through traditional Mexican dance. It's a perspective of dance therapy. This is an area that has little documentation."

Her husband, whose Borrego Law Corporation specializes in work and auto accident cases, remembers when they signed the lease for the center -- "we knew we weren't going to get rich."

"But we wanted to create a place where people could be themselves. After Roxy got her master's, she decided that this center was a better way to serve the community. She left behind the opportunity to make lots of money," said José, a lead dancer with Raíces and La Evolución Salsa. "Something that I would like to tell people is that we're not McDonald's. We're more of a mom-and-pop place. Sure there are bigger and fancier places, but people say this feels like home."

Cultural pride and the center are important, said Roxana.

"I see politicians attempting to push poorly drafted immigration reform and English-only laws (and) extremists in the media generating hatred towards Latinos with stereotypes. This gives me more reason and drive to promote our cultural pride, to educate others and celebrate who we are," she said.

The Borregos have two children -- César, 7, and Sofía, 5 -- who dance with Nube de Oro.

Additional information: (916) 428-3320, www.raicesdemitierra.com or www.sacculturaldance.com.