A beautiful article about Fiesta and the dancing tradition . My daughter danced with Kathy Cota's studio, and my mom took lessons from, and danced with, José Manero.
There, however, is one essential point about Fiesta left out:
While this paragraph in the story may be true — "Fiesta began in 1924 as a civic pageant celebrating the region’s Spanish, Mexican, and Indigenous roots — a romanticized nod to Santa Barbara’s rancho period, when families and neighbors gathered in the patios and plazas of this small pueblo, playing music and dancing. They were having a fiesta." — my mom always said it was to draw tourists to S.B. in the off season, back when the rich people Back East wintered in S.B. It was a ghost town in the summer.