Meet the Elgin woman who went from an engineer to ballet dancer
Ruffled red skirts swirl in huge circular patterns on the dance floor, creating a feast for the eyes as well as a strong breeze. The sounds of traditional folkloric Mexican music and synchronized, accented foot tapping energize the dance room. And every few seconds between the double swirls you can catch a glimpse of the bright eyes and beaming smile of Cynthia G. Hernandez as she dances among her students. The look of genuine joy is unmistakable.
Born and raised in Elgin, Hernandez is the artistic director of Ballet Folklorico Huehuecoyotl, a nonprofit, in-residence ensemble at Elgin Community College. It offers four levels of classes, all of which Hernandez teaches, for students age 5 to adult. She and her husband, Julian, who formed the group in 1996, also perform and compete with the adult group. The group has won 40 trophies in 11 US competitions over the past eight years.
At the time she started teaching part-time for BFH in 2000, she was working as a mechanical engineer. She was “an engineer by day, a dancer by night” for several years. Then the recession hit and her position was eliminated in 2003. She continued to look for engineering jobs or ways to reinvent her career, but at one point she stepped back and realized that throughout her life, “Dance was always there.” Throughout high school and even college she taught a few dances for a few folk festivals on campus.
“So I could never get away from dance,” she said. “It was always a part of me. It was always something that I wanted to share.”
With support and encouragement from Julian, she decided to continue and expand with her dance.
Even though she never took formal dance lessons as a kid, Hernandez says she was always surrounded by music and learning dances growing up. She studied violin, viola, guitar and piano, and was even a part of an orchestra program at ECC as a kid. She spent summers in the town of Matanzas, in Jalisco, Mexico, with family where she developed a deep love for the culture, music and dance of her kin along with the “caring ways with each other and basically the values of family.”
Hernandez says Folkorico always caught her eye for the cultural connection.
“I simply enjoy the dance because those are the sounds of my house. That was the music that was playing in my house when I was growing up. My hips just moved naturally, my feet just tapped naturally because that's kind of what was ingrained in me when I was growing up.”
Hernandez finds it interesting how her life has evolved.
“Even though I may not be using the specifics of mechanical engineering, the problem solving is definitely there and the workings behind the scenes really helped me prepare to do what I do now.”
Getting students of different skill levels to work together as a team “is just another different kind of puzzle you need to solve.”
She say she gets emotional when she watches per students perform after months of practice. Her voice waivers as she continues, “When you see them on stage, enjoying what they're doing with these huge smiles on their faces, it always, always brings tears to my eyes, because you see all the hard work and you see how much joy it brings to them.”
For details on Ballet Folklorico Huehuecoyotl, visit bfh.org or call (847) 612-8300.
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