The parking lot of Veterans Of Foreign Wars Post 9186 was already full before 10 a.m., the official kick-off of the 42nd annual Tejano Conjunto Festival Seniors Dance.
Attendees dressed to the nines in sequins, cowboy hats and boots, festive skirts and patterned shirts strolled straight to the smooth linoleum-tiled dance floor to take up an annual San Antonio tradition, accordion melodies and thumping bass drum filling the spacious hall.
This is the first time the Seniors Dance has been held at the Southside VFW post, said Cristina Ballí, executive director of the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center and caretaker of the festival founded by music scholar Juan Tejeda in 1982.
“We’re keeping it real on the South Side,” Ballí said as she and Tejeda prepared to take the stage to welcome the crowd of nearly 200 seniors.
One big happy family
Flo Maley, 86, has attended the festival every year since it started. This year, she took a rideshare from her home on the far Northeast Side to meet her niece, Mary Lupe Torres.
Torres used to attend with her husband, Carlos, an accordion player who took classes with Flaco Jimenez, but stopped coming when Carlos died a few years ago. Wednesday marked her first time back, and she said she looked forward to sitting and listening to the music.
Two dozen couples danced as Los Hermanos DeLeón played onstage, followed by Felipe Perez y sus Polkeros. But Maley said she didn’t have a favorite group. “They’re all wonderful,” she said, beaming.
Rudy Ortiz and his wife, Linda, traveled from Tucson, Arizona for the festival, as they do each year. “This is our vacation,” Ortiz said. “We’ve been coming here for many years. We spend the whole week here.”
He first heard about the festival in 1993 from a friend. “We flew out the first time, and we’ve been hooked ever since,” he said.
Inside the VFW post, Ortiz greeted Tejeda by name with a warm handshake. “Over the years we’ve made friends. It’s just like one big happy family.”
Embracing the culture
Seth Levine stood in the refreshments line where coffee and pan dulce were served. He and his wife, Maria Beck, drove from their home in Lockhart, delayed for an hour by traffic near Cibolo and eager to dance.
Asked how long he’s been coming to the festival, Levine said “41 years. I missed the first one.”
He said he and his wife love conjunto music and dancing. “We just embrace the whole culture around conjunto music. I’m not even Mexicano, but my wife is, and it’s just something that we’ve enjoyed for so many years.”
They’ll be back and forth between Lockhart and San Antonio over the weekend and will attend Sunday’s performances at Rosedale Park to celebrate their 26th wedding anniversary.
Learning to dance
Lydia Ontiveros sat with Richard Ramirez, talking during the break between bands. The couple — she, an 81-year-old widow and he, a 75-year-old widower — met nine months ago and this was their first Seniors Dance together.
They actually grew up two blocks apart in their Westside neighborhood and ran with the same friend groups, but lost touch when she went to Edgewood High School and he went to Fox Tech. They recently got reacquainted, and now Ramirez is teaching her how to dance.
While dancing to the energetic conjunto music gets her heart beating, she said her doctor approves of the exercise. She said he asked if she had joined a gym, and she responded, “No, but I’m going dancing.”
The VFW post, which frequently hosts music groups and dancing, kept its tables-to-the-sides arrangement for its first Seniors Dance.
Levine and Beck took a break from dancing to sit with friends. Beck said her parents used to listen to conjunto music on the radio all the time, “and I poo-pooed it. Because I was a teenager and I was Top 40. But then I met him, and he was enamored of this music way before he met me. And he brought me back to my roots.”
The Tejano Conjunto Festival continues Thursday with the Conjunto Music Hall of Fame induction ceremony, dinner and dance, also at VFW Post 9186 from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. with tickets available here.
The festival moves to Rosedale Park Friday through Sunday for three days of featured groups and dancing. Tickets for each day are available here.
