Las Vegas dancers receive invite to presidential inaugural parade

A relatively obscure Las Vegas dance group that got a chance to perform on national television at the Latin Grammys at Mandalay Bay last year has made the big time - again.

Members of Comparza Morelenze recently got word that they have been selected to participate in the 57th Presidential Inaugural Day Parade in Washington on Jan. 21.

Whether the dancers, in their bright costumes and elaborate head gear, are going to be in front of President Barack Obama's motorcade or behind it, they don't know just yet. The details are still in the works.

But they don't really care because the fact of the matter is that they're going to be in the presence of the president of the United States.

Not a bad gig considering that for the past two years the group's performances have largely been relegated to the bare-bulb dance halls in the barrios of Las Vegas.

Not too shabby after having to haul their tired selves out to birthday parties and quinceañeras in the wake of a long day's work, their costumes, masks and music brightening the days of Mexican children - like some sort of entourage of clowns come to town.

In all, there are six families in the group, with a total 30 members, whose ages range from 10 to 60 years old.

They do the dance and don the dress for one simple reason: to share a part of their culture and heritage - an indigenous dance more than 150 years old.

The costumes often upstage the dance itself, a simple circular hopping that looks more like some Grateful Dead gathering than intricate age-old choreography.

The dance was invented by the indigenous peasants of central Mexico, in the state of Morelos, in the 1850s. It was at a time when Mexico was ruled by the French and the indigenous people, whose ancestry can be traced as far back as the Aztec empire, worked on the surrounding sugar cane plantations.

The story goes that the peasants, upset by their daily oppression, needed some sort of outlet. So they decided to mock the aristocrats by dressing up in these costumes that had an uncanny resemblance to the French and the ruling Spanish before that - uptilted beards, blue eyes, pale skin, blue blood ways.

"Then they'd go to the streets and dance their hearts out, but nobody would be able to recognize them," said Serafin Garcia, 36, a construction worker by day and dancer in his off time. "It was a disguise."

Garcia and his older brother, Celso, 50, and his sister, Maria, 40, are founding members of the group, formed two years ago.

They call themselves "chinelos." That's the word for the dance itself. It comes from Nahuatl language, one of many Aztec dialects, and it means "to be disguised."

All of the families hail from the small town of Cuautla, which has a predominant indigenous population and whose name means "where the eagles roam."

Nearly all of them grew up putting on the costumes and performing the dance - mostly during Lent.

But then they left their hometown and came to Las Vegas, looking for a better life, in the early 1990s. And it wasn't until a few years ago that they decided to make the costumes and start dancing at festivals here.

When Lou Pieh, the organizer of the inaugural parade, spotted them at the Latin Grammys, he tracked down Garcia and gave him a call.

But Garcia, who speaks little English, didn't understand the message, so he called upon his niece, Stephanie Padilla, 20. A graduate of Western High School, she understood everything - loud and clear. "We're going to the parade!" she exclaimed, translating the message as the elders gathered round.

That was three weeks ago. Now they've got to raise the money, book the flights and arrange for accommodations.

And that heavy task falls to Padilla, who has an iPad and is in constant contact with the parade's organizer.

They've managed to raise $100, but that's not nearly enough. They're figuring they're going to buy now on credit card, and pay later, the American way.

"We need help," Padilla said.