"I want you all to know: Everyone who participates in this dance, St. Francis blesses them, economically and also spiritually," community leader Candelario Flores announced to the over-capacity crowd that had gathered in the small Somerville Museum on Saturday.
With that, a handful of playfully masked men armed with maracas and flowers passed out masks and hats to the excited crowd.
El Baile de los Negritos was underway.
At 5 p.m. that day, over 300 people squeezed themselves into the Somerville Museum's main hall to watch El Baile de los Negritos, a traditional dance from the El Salvadorian town of Yucuaquin.
"It's the largest turnout we've had for any event at the museum," said Director of Exhibitions Michael O'Connell.
Saturday's festivities kicked off an exhibition of Yucuaquin's art and culture that will be featured at the Somerville Museum through May 21. In the following weeks, the museum will display the history of Yucuaquin through photography. It will also offer a series of panel discussions and seminars on El Salvadorian migration and development.
The exhibition was largely the brainchild of Tufts junior Sebastian Chaskel, who first encountered the approximately 300-person Yucuaquin community in Somerville as a student in an anthropology class taught by Associate Anthropology Professor Deborah Pacini Hernandez.
"I was doing a project where I recorded their oral history," Chaskel said. "As it was the beginning of the semester, they invited me to the festival of St. Francis."
Now, as a University College Scholar working with Associate Anthropology Professor David Guss, Chaskel recreated the festival of St. Francis for the community with the help of Yucuaquin community members and the staff of the Somerville Museum. He also received support from grants from the University College and the Somerville Arts Council.
The Yucuaquin community celebrates St. Francis, the patron saint of Yucuaquin, from May to October each year. Residents take a statue of the saint from house to house to bless every home.
Along the way, residents participate in a traditional dance called,"the dance of thanksgiving," which grows in intensity until the culmination of the journey during the feast of St. Francis in October.
"It's been 30 years since I did this dance," confessed Manuel Miranda, who grew up in Yucuaquin. "Everybody can do it, if they know how to move."
O'Connell called this "an amazing opportunity for the museum."
"We love to bring together all of the different pieces of the Somerville community;" he said. "The museum is a place where we can get them to cross paths."
The event provided a unique opportunity for the Yucuaquin community to reach out to other ethnic communities in Somerville.
"It's the first event where we invited all the communities around," said Jose Israel Miranda, who helped organize the dance and exhibit. "We're trying to reach out and show the other communities our culture."
He hopes to repeat such exhibitions in other states with large Yucuaquin populations.
Some of those in attendance got their first taste of Yucuaquin culture, but for others, the dance brought back memories. Joan Schwartz, a resident of Brookline, has traveled to El Salvador but came to the Somerville Museum to see culture she didn't experience abroad.
"People there are working so hard to survive that there just isn't much time for dancing," she said. "It's really wonderful that we get a chance to experience the culture so close to home."
El Salvadorian expatriates who attended appreciated the dance as well. "I grew up in El Salvador doing this," said Ana Abiles, whose 11-year-old son Jason donned a mask and danced along with the more experienced adults. "Now I get to show my kids the tradition."
Chaskel hopes the exhibit, which will feature the masks and costumes worn by the dancers on Saturday, will encourage museum-goers to experience the Yucuaquin tradition.
"Usually when people see beautiful things behind glass, they think, 'Oh, that's a great tradition of the past,'" he said. "But then we take out the masks [for the dance] ... it's a living tradition."
