This Friday, Aspen Santa Fe Ballet Folklórico performers will take the stage at Carbondale’s 20th celebration of Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead).

The First Friday celebration, Nov. 1 from 5-9 p.m., includes live music and performances by Aspen Santa Fe Ballet Folklórico, Mezcla Socials Dance, Roaring Fork Youth Orchestra and drumming led by Gabriela Mejia. 

A procession through downtown Carbondale begins at Third Street Center at 6 p.m. and ends at Fourth and Main streets. Food trucks with comida típica will be parked along Fourth Street and pan de muerto and Mexican hot chocolate will be served throughout the evening. Face painting will be offered in the Fourth Street Plaza and at the Carbondale branch library and there will be a community ofrenda (altar) on the front porch of the Launchpad. 

Aspen Santa Fe Ballet Folklórico provides children grades K-12 with free instruction in Mexican folkloric dance. Established in 1998, the program now serves around 240 students from public schools in the Roaring Fork Valley as well as Santa Fe. 

Glenwood Springs high schooler Jose Lopez will perform in the Día de los Muertos celebration Friday, and has been dancing with Aspen Santa Fe Ballet Folklórico for around seven years. 

He was in third grade when his mom pulled him out of school for his first Folklórico class. 

“(My mom) said at first that it was ballet. I was like, ‘No, I don’t want to go. I don’t want to do ballet.’ And she’s like, ‘No, it’s not ballet. It’s a Mexican (cultural dance) that I used to do, and you’ll like it,'” Lopez said. “That’s when I met Francisco (Paco) Nevarez-Burgueño, our teacher currently, and that’s just how I got into it.”

Lopez has since danced in numerous Día de los Muertos performances. “A few years ago, I was only in the parade, but I stayed and watched the performance we had in the theater, and it was pretty amazing,” he said. “I promised myself that next year I would dance on the stage, and it happened.”

Nevarez-Burgueño, director of the Folklórico program, considers different aspects of Mexican culture for each year’s costume motifs — this year, dancers will pay homage to the Aztec culture. 

“The guys are really masculine. They’re the leaders. They’re powerful or paying tribute to the gods. Girls are more feminine, but they’re also as strong as the guys,” Cristina Landeros, an 18-year-old Folklórico performer who lives in Glenwood Springs, said. “It just shows the Aztec tradition.”

Like Lopez, Landeros, now Nevarez-Burgueño’s teaching assistant, has been in Aspen Santa Fe Ballet Folklórico since she was a young child. 

“I enjoy the art it creates because it’s a visual performance. It has skirt movement. It has facial expressions. We scream. Sometimes we act out the music,” Landeros said. “I love the art that we get to show others.”

Now in her 10th year with Aspen Santa Fe Ballet Folklórico, Landeros is looking forward to another Día de los Muertos First Friday celebration. 

“It’s just a great part of tradition here in this valley, First Friday and Day of the Dead. It’s something that’s been going on ever since I’ve grown up here,” Landeros said. “It’s been great to be a part of it, and even when I wasn’t a part of it, it was always so cool to watch these dancers perform, because it’s something out of the ordinary. It doesn’t happen in any other small towns, or maybe it does, but to have it in our own Valley, it’s something unique and special.”