Join us this April for a series celebrating Latin American dance, music, history, and cultural connection. Throughout the month, we’ll offer Saturday dance lessons, along with featured speakers and a related book discussion. We’ll celebrate at the end of the month with a fiesta featuring the Colorado Mambo Orchestra.
All events are free thanks to the generous support of the Friends of the Lyons Regional Library! The dance series is presented by BrightHeart Productions.
Space is limited. Registration required.
Let's Dance!
At first glance, the vision of Baile Latino to Connect Cultures is to create an opportunity to enjoy an evening out in Lyons. Come dance together, make new friends, and learn something new. A deeper vision of this program is to celebrate diversity within our community, create opportunities for Latin Music to be enjoyed, for Spanish to be spoken, and for residents to learn how to dance to syncopated rhythms.
Dance instructor, Elisa Garcia, will instruct in both Spanish and English, encouraging participants to learn and speak Spanish. The classes will focus on learning popular Latin dances, including the Salsa and the Cha-Cha, hailing from Cuba, and the Bachata, which originated in the Dominican Republic. Local Boulder musicians Leo Munoz-Corona and Kyle Perez will play percussion during the dance classes which maximizes the dancer’s connection to the music, while supporting our local artists. For the 4th week, we will celebrate with a grand fiesta, complete with a live Latin band, the Colorado Mambo Orchestra!
While we encourage you to sign-up for the entire series, you must register for each separately. We know how busy springtime can become and this allows for greater flexibility and participation.
You must register for each event separately
Scroll down for Artist Bios!
Dive Deeper!
We are so pleased to welcome Carmen Reina-Nelson to the Lyons Library on April 7th at 7:00pm! Whether you register for the dance series or not, please join us to learn about the spiritual and historic roots of popular Latin American and Caribbean dances.
Carmen Reina-Nelson, a native of Guatemala, introduced Boulder to the popular dances and culture of Latin America in 1991. For the next 25 years, Carmen taught dance classes and performed regularly with her Grupo Macondo, sharing the dances of Afro-Indo-Ibero America. Carmen also served as artist-in-residence at Bates College and the University of Colorado, created the first Afro-Latin dance festival in Boulder, was the recipient of Boulder County’s Ninth Annual Multicultural Award for the Arts, sponsored visits by inspiring teachers, and served as Latin American Projects Coordinator for the Colorado Dance Festival.
Carmen has always emphasized that artistic endeavor in Afro-Caribbean and Hispanic cultures is a cooperative expression of community, not a competitive endeavor to win an award. As Carmen likes to say, “Dance is meant to nurture the spirit, not the ego.” Carmen’s teaching promotes positive change through growth, both as individuals and as a society.
We welcome Dr. Lorraine Bayard de Volo on April 20th at 7pm. She will discuss her work on revolutionary women in Cuba and Nicaragua and will share knowledge and experiences from her decades of fieldwork researching women’s political participation during the respective revolutions in Cuba and Nicaragua. She will discuss how women’s roles in these revolutions challenge the notion that social change is a predominantly male sphere. There will also be a time for questions and answers at the end of the presentation.
Read & Discsuss!
Join us on Wednesday, April 27th at 7:00pm for a discussion of Next Year in Havana by Chanel Cleeton, a book Reese Witherspoon hailed as, “A beautiful novel that’s full of forbidden passions, family secrets and a lot of courage and sacrifice. A starred review in the Library Journal described it as, “An enticing and wonderful read for lovers of historical fiction and soul-searching journeys.”
There will be multiple print copies available at the library.
About the Performers & Our Partners
Born in Uruguay, Elisa grew up immersed in the sounds of tango and other Latin American music. At an early age, Elisa demonstrated an affinity with the arts, from singing and dancing to drawing on her bedroom walls. At the age of eight, Elisa moved to Boulder, CO with her family. Her interest in different cultures as well as discovering her own roots led her to study anthropology at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Fusing this love of cultures with her passions in music and dance, Elisa studied African dance, bellydance, tango, salsa, and Brazilian samba. She has taught Samba workshops, performed in Colorado and Singapore, and has also been a Zumba instructor since 2009. Currently, she performs Latin American folk music with the Elisa Garcia Trio and is leading Third Law Dance/Theater’s Dance for Parkinson’s en español program. Learn more about Elisa’s dance, music, and art on her website monaelisa.com.
Leo was born in Mexico City and has travelled the world through music. His career started in piano, but Leo later turned to another passion, percussion, as a means to get by playing on the metro. Soon he was playing and recording with big names in the worlds of Salsa, Jazz, Latin Jazz, Latin Rock and Pop including Jaguares, Tom Coster, Willie Colon, Juanes (Ekhymosis), Lucero, Ricardo Arjona, Paulina Rubio, Emmanuel, Franco De Vita and many more.
Leo has also produced and arranged for bands like Curanderos and SHEM. In 2005, he was chosen as the Musical Director for the BMI Latin Awards in Las Vegas Nevada with a tribute to Carlos Santana.
Currently, Leo lives in Denver, Colorado and is actively performing and recording with local bands like Chicos Malos, Orquesta La Brava, and Quemando, as well as projects with Victor Mestas, Justin Adams, Greg Gisbert, Gonzalo Teppa, Stafford Hunter, and his wife Elisa Garcia. Aside from local gigs, Leo still performs with international artists.
Since 2019, he has been a supporting teacher at the award-winning Thompson Jazz Studies Program at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Chicago-land native, Kyle Perez, has been playing percussion since he was 12 years old. His love for latin music comes from being raised by his Abuela. He lives in Boulder now with his wife, still playing percussion and performing music all over Colorado.
The Colorado Mambo Orchestra (COMO) is a new Denver-based musical group that performs an expansive repertoire of works—from traditional Cuban to R&B/Soul classics, American Songbook, Brazilian, and beyond—all imbued with their unique high-energy Salsa/Mambo style. Every member of COMO is classically trained and a seasoned performing professional. The size of the group varies from a 5-piece core rhythm section plus violin, to a 14-piece full-blown Mambo Orchestra. COMO also offers guest artists the opportunity to collaborate and contribute their particular “flavor” to the group. The result is an invariably dynamic and highly engaging experience.
Dr. Raul Murciano, Jr. is the founder and musical director of COMO. His extensive and impressive trajectory in the world of music includes also being a founding member, keyboardist, and musical director of the world renowned Miami Sound Machine (Gloria Estefan), recording studio owner, CEO of Bethania Records, composer, arranger, and music producer for film, radio, and television, as well as numerous artists. Murciano holds a
Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering and both master’s and Doctoral degrees in Music Composition. He served for 28 years in academia at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music as Full Professor of Practice and also as Dean of Administration. Following
his recent move to the Denver area, Murciano created COMO to extol the impact of Cuban music and showcase its influence throughout the Hispanic, Anglo, and the entire Western world.
COMO has already performed at Boettcher Hall with the Colorado Symphony as part of the Hispanic Heritage Celebration in collaboration with the Mexican Cultural Center and recently made their television debut on the Telemundo Network. Next on the agenda is the studio recording and production of five pieces that will capture the unique energy and
essence of the group—hip and powerful arrangements of proven classics: Oye Como Va made popular by Carlos Santana, The Buena Vista Social Club’s El Cuarto De Tula, “salsafied” English/Spanish versions of Billy Joel’s Rosalinda’s Eyes and Bobby Caldwell’s What You Won’t Do For Love, and Murciano’s own first hit ballad with Miami Sound Machine, Renacer.
Theresa Brighton loves to create connections in fun and meaningful ways. She has organized many events centered around people, music and movement – from a weekly children’s music hour, to dance fitness classes, to weddings, house concerts, and benefit shows – all while prioritizing zero-waste planning.
Theresa comes from a big family and was born and raised in the Denver metro area. She moved to Lyons in 2014 when her husband, Ian, started working for Rocky Mountain National Park. They are now raising two amazing boys who attend Lyons Elementary School.
The idea for “Baile Latino to Connect Cultures” started with a yearning for more Latin music, dancing, and Spanish in Lyons. She feels diversity makes our communities strong, and is grateful for this partnership with the Lyons Community Library, Friends of the Library, Freida’s Cafe & Bakery, Elisa Garcia, Leo Munoz-Corona, Kyle Perez, and the Colorado Mambo Orchestra.
Visit her website: https://brightheartproductions.com/