Santa Fe New Mexican
Robert Nott
January 23, 2016
One day in the early 1990s, Tiborsio Montoya, a farmer trying to make a go of it in the village of Agua Fria, went out to work his land and fell into a well he had dug on the property. In a rural area with few neighbors around to hear his cries of help, his plight could have meant death.
At almost the same moment when he fell, however, his wife, Cleofas, noticed that a santo in the couple’s home had fallen over, catching her attention. She took it as a sign that her husabdn was in trouble and organized a search party. They found Tiborsio in the well and rescued him.
The real-life story inspired Joey Chavez, the great-great-great-nephew of Tiborsio and Cleofas, to write “El Baile,” a story of love, land, and loss set in Santa Fe in 1850. His tale, however, centers on a love triangle involving a pair of quarreling teen brothers – one of whom falls in a well. The title comes from the traditional el baile de los cascarones, in which men and boys ask women to dance by breaking confetti-filled eggs over their heads.
The play, which will be performed next weekend by students at the New Mexico School for the Arts, touches on the social, cultural, and familial issues and challenges facing families at a time whe the New Mexico Territory was fighting for statehood while also trying to find and secure its own identity in the wake of Mexican, Spanish, and American influence and infighting.
“El Baile” includes a re-creation of the cascarones dance and several traditional Northern New Mexico folk songs in Spanish. Some of the dialogue is in Spanish as well.
Chavez first directed “El Baile” in 2003 with the now-defunct Teatro Popular-Teatro Hispano company. He recently rewrote the work, making what he calls subtle changes that probably will not be noticeable to anyone who saw the 2003 production. This production, in which he’s working with student actors in grades 9-11 rather than adult professional actors, provides a new level of satisfaction for him.
“Students are very accepting of what we are asking them to do,” Chavez said during a recent rehearsal. “They are basically clean slates.”
Ninth-grader John Helfrich and 10th-grader Vincent Versace, who play the teen brothers in the play, said many elements in the performance resonate today, including the familial makeup of the main family. The father is wasting away the family’s finances gambling and drinking, and has basically abandoned his wide and sons.
“I think that all of these things still happen in families today,” said Vincent, who plays a brother named Antonio.
Vincent’s character in “El Baile” vies with John’s character, a brother named Carlos, for the love of their neighbor Victoria. Carlos meets her at el baile de los cascarones, but despite his best confetti-egg effort, she seems more drawn to the younger Antonio.
The brothers’ rivalry for her hand is tested in unexpected ways when Antonio gets trapped in the family well, leading to a community effort — initiated by a santo that topples over in the home of the boy’s mother — to rescue him. An unexpected ally in the rescue mission is the infamous Dona Tules, businesswoman, gambler, art patron – and perhaps madam – of a local bordello.
Vincent marveled at the conventional and conservative ways in which the play depicts teen boys and girls engaging in romance 165 years ago, meeting at dances and then waiting patiently through weeks or months of courtship before marrying.
“Nowadays, teens skirt around ideas. Back then, we weren’t so sheepish about love,” he said. “Today, no relationship is expected to last more than three weeks. Back then, they planned to get married and stay married.”
Ana Rael, an 11th-grade student who plays Dona Tules, said her research and portrayal of the woman have taught her a valuable lesson about first impressions. Tules is a caring heroine in “El Baile,” a woman willing to use her wit, wisdom – and, in Rael’s words, “maybe her body” – to not only get what she wants but to help build her community.
“El Baile,” Rael said, imparts the lesson that “to show we care, we have to get past the material issues and our preconceived ideas of people based on what we might hear about them. Dona Tules had to develop a new style of living, being a woman in a man’s world. She is generous, religious, smart. And she understands that people are more than what they do for a living.”
The New Mexico School for the Arts will present three performances of “El Baile” next weekend at James A. Little Theater. Chavez and Deborah Potter co-direct the cast and crew of 28 students.