Color, music and the smell of fresh tortillas filled the Ponderosa room in the Nebraskan Student Union last week as United in Dance hosted its final event of the year. The Hispanic Festival, inspired by flower festivals in South America, drew in students and community members with traditional Latin games and folk dances.
Senior Sayuli Lopez, president of the organization, gave the opening remarks and began the festival with a tortilla-making event.
“Tonight is about coming together, sharing stories and celebrating culture,” Lopez said. “I think it’s important to bring the community and UNK together. Bringing these events home makes everything more special.”
The event drew inspiration from Colombia’s famous Feria de las Flores, a detail the organization highlighted in a video showcasing the festival’s floral imagery. Games representing different Latin American countries lined the event space, alongside a taco bar, giving attendees plenty of ways to participate.
A senior ran the balero game, one of the fair events that involves tossing a circular ball with a hole in it onto a wooden peg.
“It’s all in good fun, and I really enjoyed the dances,” said Tim Ledesma, who volunteered at the event. “Many of them were very similar to some of the dances in the Philippines, too. The clothing they wore was very colorful and very interesting too.”
Two groups took the floor for the evening’s dance performances. The first was Grupo Folklórico Belleza de Nuestra Tierra, a Kearney-based folk-dance troupe. Performers ranging from young children to adults opened the show, with their routines representing different Latin American regions. United in Dance’s executive members followed with their own performance, including a piece featuring a candle balanced atop two dancers’ heads.
Student participation extended to a kitchen made on stage, where attendees learned to make corn tortillas from scratch. By using Maseca and warm water, pressing each one flat with a tortilladora, the volunteers served the fresh corn tortillas to the audience. Mexico is widely regarded as the birthplace of the corn tortilla, a staple that has spread across Latin cuisines for centuries.
Lopez said the outreach beyond just campus was intentional.
Rather than limiting invitations to students, the organization personally reached out to professors, community members and local groups.
“When you invite one person, they tell another person,” Lopez said. “Personal invitations made the event more special.”
Families attended alongside students, with children running to compete at the fair games, and university administrators were also present for the evening.
For Lopez and the rest of United in Dance’s executive team, the festival marked the end of a three-year chapter and the end of this year’s events. She said she hopes another group of students will take over the organization, but the work the current team put in was about more than event planning.
“United in Dance represents that we’re not just an organization,” Lopez said. “We have a home for everybody.”
