Spanish Club presented a colorful – and tasty – performance to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month. Students learned traditional dances that are part of the Hispanic culture, opening the doors to the community one night and performing for the student body the next afternoon.

“I was really nervous at first,” freshman Alyia Ingram said. “I mean I kind of already knew the dances, but either way I wanted to represent this culture well.”

Students had a little over a week to practice and managed to get everything down. Some of the students were in more than one dance and said they were really stressed out.

“I honestly wish we had more time to practice,” junior Rodrigo Carillo said “I was in three dances and had to learn them really quick.”

As the day of the performance grew closer, students started to feel the pressure and were anxious.

“Most of the dances were last-minute,” Rogelio Vasquez said. “I was mainly focused on the quebradita dance because of all of the lifting we had to do.”

Quebradita is a Modern Mexican dance where partners do crazy turns and flips, making it harder for the students.

“When I was younger I used to perform Quebraditas,” Spanish teacher Maria Salazar said. “So I thought it would be fun to try and teach them what I used to do.”

With the audience gathering in the auditorium, the students held last-minute practices behind the stage curtain.

“I was really nervous because we were the first ones to perform,” sophomore Keyla Garcia said. “But I just took a deep breath and tried to make the best out of it.”

The performances finished with a group of native dancers from Marquez and then invited the audience to enjoy traditional treats from different Hispanic countries that had been prepared by the FCS students.

“I think we all did really well,” senior Omar Almeida said. “I’m honestly glad we got to do something to show other people our Hispanic culture.”