This Mexican folkloric dance event is ‘homeless’ after rejections. It’s looking for a Fresno spot

The country’s largest gathering of Mexican folkloric dancers is facing the possibility of becoming homeless for its 45th Danzantes Unidos Festival after the Clovis Unified School District rejected a request on Tuesday to host the event at Clovis West High School.

“We are homeless, and with no guarantee of a future,” said María Luisa Colmenárez, president of Danzantes Unidos, the festival’s organizer.

The festival is now scrambling to find another location large enough to accommodate more than 1,100 dancers and about 50 workshops over the Palm Sunday weekend.

The festival, which includes showcase concerts in downtown theaters, lost its opportunity to return to Sunnyside High School when that school’s folkloric dance director decided she wanted to spend more time with her children – including Palm Sunday weekend – before they get much older.

The organization has a policy of having a school’s dance director on board so that his or her dancers can act as promoters and representatives of the festival with school officials.

Discussions are being held with two other schools, both in the Fresno Unified School District. Colmenárez is hoping for a quick resolution so that instructors can be hired and registration can start.

Colmenárez, a lecturer at San José State, told Vida en el Valle that the festival may have to uproot from Fresno, which has hosted the last nine festivals and 16 overall since the event was started in 1979.

Clovis East – which hosted the workshops in 2019 before the pandemic struck down the 2020 and 2021 events – turned down a chance to host the festival workshops earlier this year.

The festival has a $455,000 economic impact on Fresno, according to studies done by the Fresno Convention and Visitors Bureau and festival organizers. That includes more than 500 nights of lodging, meals and other expenses.

District said it can’t accommodate size of the festival

Clovis school district spokeswoman Kelly Avants said the festival is too big for Clovis West, which hosted the event in 2015.

“The scale of the request that was made to the district by festival organizers (including the number of individual classrooms and the amount of furniture they need to move) is too large for us to accommodate with our staff capacity and their existing responsibilities,” said Avants in an email response Tuesday afternoon.

Colmenárezsaid the festival pays the host school district $20,000 to cover school worker expenses such as moving classroom furniture and custodial work. The school’s folkloric dance group gets $5,000.

Avants said the festival dates “also fell on a holiday weekend, additionally compounding the challenge in granting this request.”

The Clovis district, said Avants, asked festival organizers if the workshops could be held outdoors to avoid having to move furniture and other classroom materials. Doing so, she said, “may make it possible for us to grant the facility use request.”

Festival organizers have an opportunity to address the district on Jan. 11, but Colmenárez said the district will most likely say no again.

Colmenárez said the festival planning is done way in advance, with instructors lined up in late November and registration opening in December. Without a confirmed site, she said the festival can’t proceed.

Time in Fresno may be ending

Fresno, which first hosted the festival in 1990, could see its last year as host, said Colmenárez. School districts in the Bay area and Los Ángeles have expressed interest in hosting the festival, she said.

San José, second in number of times as host (eight), welcomed the festival from 2008 through 2010 before the event moved to Fresno.

Colmenárezprefers Fresno’s central location which makes it easier for folkloric groups from throughout California to attend. Participants also come from Washington, Nevada and faraway states like Indiana.

Organizers looked at UC Merced, but ruled it out because the City of Merced does not have sufficient hotel rooms or a theater large enough to accommodate the showcase concerts.

Fresno Pacific expressed an interest in hosting the festival workshops, but then discovered the southeast Fresno site was not big enough.

Fresno State has been ruled out because of a competing dance festival, and the Fresno fairgrounds has its larger buildings already committed.

Colmenárezsaid Clovis West officials had tentatively approved the use of their facilities, but the district said no.

Danzantes Unidos pays almost $800 monthly in Fresno to store the plywood boards that are placed in classrooms to protect carpeting and flooring.

Colmenárez said festival organizers are open to using a Clovis school in the future.