Annual Book Fair Promotes Reading, Celebration of Cabo Culture
Colegio Papalotl’s book fair, designed to promote reading and provide reading material for tots and teens also served as a showcase for local culture.
Given the Los Cabos area’s dearth of bookstores, any book sale or reading-based program can be considered cause for celebration. The celebratory metaphor seemed particularly apt, however, at the annual Colegio Papalotl organized book fair, held last Thursday evening, January 30, at the Pabellón Cultural de La República in Cabo San Lucas.
Not only did the school-sponsored event offer a variety of affordable books in English and Spanish to the hundreds of locals who attended but there was also an entertaining presentation for parents designed to promote reading in the home as well as a look at local fine arts courtesy of a painting retrospective and live performances from area dance students.
“Lejos de Ti” is one of more than two dozen paintings included in Del Mar, Erotismo y Fantasías, the pictorial retrospective for local artist and teacher Juan Bañuelos.
The book sale tables and dance performances were set amid a visually engaging backdrop of paintings by noted local artist and teacher Juan Bañuelos. The artist’s pictorial retrospective, titled Del Mar, Erotismo y Fantasías, opened on January 17 at the Pabellón Cultural de La República, and it features approximately 30 pieces dating back to 1997. The paintings are primarily mixed media on canvas, and provide an excellent introduction to Bañuelos’s vivid palette and stylized explorations of the land and seascapes of Los Cabos.
Live performance highlights included presentations from contemporary dance school Salon Fama, as well as memorable showcases for ballet students from the Casa de la Cultura in Cabo San Lucas, taught by Perla Pulido of Ballet Pearlformance. Her octet of aspiring ballerinas—Elisabeth Hirales, Paulina Martínez, Aketzalli García, Fernanda Muñoz, Aileen Tufiño, Rosy Pérez, Daniela Marchen, and Karla Marquez—pliéd and pirouetted in front of family and friends in three separate age groups, to musical selections that included Vals Alejandra and Sobre las Olas by Mexican composers Ernesto Mora Andrade and Juventino Rosas, respectively, as well as the 19th-century ballet standard Pas de Quatre from French choreographer Jules Perrot and Italian composer Cesare Pugni.
Highlights of the evening included performances by Perla Pulido’s ballet students from the Casa de la Cultura in Cabo San Lucas.
The Juan Bañuelos retrospective is available for viewing through February 14, also known as Valentine’s Day, or El Día del Amor y la Amistad. For additional information about upcoming programs and events at the Pabellón Cultural de La República, click here. For information about dance lessons, visit Salon Fama and Ballet Pearlformance.