Baile folklórico

Each region in Mexico, the Southwestern United States and Central American countries is known for a handful of locally characteristic dances.

Traditional bailes in the majority of regions of Mexico are characterized by a basic set of steps called zapateados, which involve percussive heel-stomping.

Additionally, she founded a school in Mexico City for the study and practice of classical and folkloric dance techniques.

Ballet Folklorico has also become a symbol of Mestizaje and the mixing of Spanish and Indigenous Mexican music and dance forms.

In one program, they noted: “It is in the mestizaje of the indigenous and the Spanish where one will find one of the essential traits of the mexican people: A whole series of expressions are colored by their own vigorous style.”[6] The company, like many other folkloric Mexican dance companies draw on indigenous dances and “remodel”[7] them with their own style and for stage performance.

In the case of Ballet Folklorico, that involves western techniques brought in through Amalia Hernandez, whose own upbringing and dance education was multicultural and international.

For example, the charro suit and the zapateo, or foot stomping, both are influenced by Spanish dress and flamenco dance and are symbols of mestizaje.

Traditional Indigenous dance would not have been performed on the proscenium stage, therefore, Ballet Folklorico uses European theatrical conventions to modify Indigenous-based movement to function in a new cultural medium.

The folkloric dances of Honduras incorporate elements of the indigenous, European and African ancestry fused in the Honduran culture.

Reflecting both history and culture, Honduran folk traditions accompany and represent significant events in peoples' lives.

Since the 1950s, folklorists starting with Rafael Manzanares Aguilar have documented about 150 traditional dances and the costumes and music that have accompanied them in the communities from which they originated.

These are broadly categorized as colonial, mestizo, indigenous (or campesino), and Garifuna,[10] reflecting the primary cultural influence of a particular dance.