Friday, October 23, 2026
Meadow Elementary School in Baldwin celebrated National Hispanic Heritage Month with its first Hispanic Heritage Assembly on Oct. 13, introducing students to traditional Spanish dance, music, history and culture.
Sponsored by the school’s Parent Teacher Association, the event featured three separate assemblies led by Maria Loreta, founder and artistic director of Sol y Sombra Spanish Dance Company, a touring performance and arts-in-education company that serves Long Island, the New York metropolitan area and audiences beyond the region. Loreta was joined by professional dancers Sofia Islam, Leslie Irizarry, Marina Palancia and Orna Szenczy.
The assemblies provided Meadow students in kindergarten through fifth grade with a lesson in Hispanic heritage and its traditions.
Second and third graders attended the first session, followed by fourth and fifth graders, with kindergarteners and first graders participating in the final assembly.
The program explored dance traditions from Spain, Latin America and the Caribbean, highlighting the cultural influences behind them. About 30 percent of Meadow’s student population identifies as Hispanic. Hispanic Heritage Month is observed annually in the United States from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15.
Catherine Mercedes, Meadow’s PTA president, said the event was an opportunity to celebrate the school’s cultural diversity and help students develop a better understanding of their classmates’ backgrounds.
“I see how important it is to bring awareness about all the people’s culture, how diverse our community has become, especially Meadow,” Mercedes said. “We have a Hispanic community that’s bypassing 35 percent of our student body, and I see how important it is to know and to learn about all the cultures. You learn through their food, through their music, through their dances … It gives you that sense of community. It gives you that sense of belonging.”
During the program, Loreta guided students through the history of Spanish dance, explaining how different cultures influenced its development.
The performers demonstrated traditional techniques using castanets, which are percussion instruments made of two concave wooden shells connected by string and typically played in pairs. Loreta explained how dancers use their hands, arms and feet to communicate emotion and maintain rhythm.
Students also learned about braceo, expressive arm movements; palmas, rhythmic hand clapping; and zapateado, the footwork often associated with flamenco.
One performance featured Palancia using a traditional Spanish hat while performing tanguillo, a lively dance style originating from Cádiz, Spain. Loreta drew students’ attention to the dancer’s expressive arm movements and demonstrated how finger movements could resemble flowers, or “flores,” opening and swaying in the wind.
Irizarry demonstrated alegrías, a flamenco style associated with happiness and celebration, using a Spanish fan, or abanico, to emphasize her movements. The performance ended with fellow dancers joining her in a celebratory birthday dance.
Loreta also discussed how cultures from the Middle East and North Africa, including present-day Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Egypt and Libya, influenced aspects of Spanish culture, from food and clothing to music and dance.
Reflecting on her background, Loreta described how her passion for dance developed alongside other interests.
“I was pre-med in college, but then there was also dancing. I enjoy making people happy,” Loreta said. “The food, the dress, people don’t realize the multicultural dimension of the Hispanic country, especially in this country.”
The presentation then shifted to Latin American and Caribbean dance styles, highlighting indigenous, European and African traditions.
Students were introduced to rumba, merengue, bachata and salsa, learning how rhythms and traditions traveled between communities and evolved over time into the dances people recognize today.
The assemblies became interactive when Loreta invited teachers to select volunteers to join the performers on stage. With guidance from the dancers, students practiced basic steps, beginning with a rumba-inspired sequence.
They learned to step forward and backward, shift their weight and coordinate their arms with the music. The group then moved to merengue, practicing stepping in place before walking forward and backward while turning to the rhythm.
Students in the audience joined in by clapping along, while the dancers encouraged volunteers to follow the beat.
The assemblies also incorporated Spanish language lessons. During sevillanas, a traditional Spanish folk dance performed in four parts, Loreta asked students to identify the number of sections in the dance, encouraging them to practice their Spanish. Students also learned when to call out “¡Olé!” to cheer on the performers.
The final assembly drew Assemblywoman Judy Griffin, who said the program offered young students a valuable opportunity to learn about the cultural traditions represented in their community.
“Baldwin has over 30 percent Hispanic population, so I think it’s so nice that at the elementary level, to celebrate Hispanic heritage and teach the kids the music and what’s behind it is such a great learning opportunity,” Griffin said. “You can see how nice it is, how nice the children are enjoying themselves.”
The PTA is planning additional cultural events throughout the school year, including a Diwali program and a Native American celebration in November.
Katherine Alicea, a PTA volunteer who helped organize the Oct. 13 event, said exposing students to different cultures at a young age can help them recognize similarities they share with their classmates.
“It’s very important for kids to know a little bit of where their friends are from,” Alicea said. “Maybe, perhaps at a young age, they might not be able to express what their culture is and how different it might be or how similar it might be. I think that being able to bring this type of assembly to teach students is definitely important because you do see how we are all different but at the same time, we are just so similar, and because all those things intertwine.”
The PTA also provided teachers with books celebrating Hispanic culture, including “Frida,” by Jonah Winter, and “El Carnival de mi Bisabuela,” by Joana Pastro. Teachers were given the opportunity to select one book for their classroom and award the student who demonstrated enthusiastic participation during the assembly.
To extend the lessons beyond the school day, the PTA prepared conversation-starter materials for families, summarizing what students learned and recommended questions for dinner-table discussions at home.
Families were encouraged to ask their children about their favorite part of the assembly, something new they learned about Hispanic culture and how music and dance can help preserve traditions.
For Mercedes, the celebration offered students a chance to discover the history and experiences of other cultures without leaving their own school community.
“It gives you an opportunity to travel across the world without leaving school grounds because with history and music, you can experience what other countries have experienced,” Mercedes said.
