JACKSON, Wyo. — More than two years in the making, the Center for the Arts is hosting the Tlaxcala Cultural Celebration, Thursday, April 25. The event celebrates the new Sister Cities Resolution between the Town of Jackson and Hueyotilpan, Tlaxcala, Mexico, and is free for the entire community.
Artists, performers and government officials from the state of Tlaxcala will visit Jackson for the event and share aspects of their culture through their own unique lens. The event also coincides with a ceremonial signing of the sister city resolution between Jackson and Hueyotlipan, Wednesday, April 24 at 5 p.m. at the Town Hall. Community members are invited to attend.
Hueyotlipan replaces the city of Tlaxcala as Jackson’s sister city, a relationship established in 2021 that has since fizzled due to turnover in that city’s local leadership, according to Jackson’s town council.
Oona Doherty, Creative Initiatives Director at Center for the Arts, said she’s spent over two years planning the event.
Doherty estimates that about 20 to 30% of the population in Teton County is Latino and said the vast majority of the Latino population is from the state of Tlaxcala. Hueyotlipan is a municipality within Tlaxcala, with a population of about 15,000, and includes the towns San Simeon and San Lucas.
“This is a program that really celebrates the humanity of our Latino community, not through the lens of work or economic growth but through the arts and cultural heritage,” Doherty said. “It showcases a variety of art forms; short films, singing, dancing, and it’s all been curated by people from Tlaxcala, based on their own cultural traditions.”
Tlaxcala Governor Lorena Cuellar Cisneros, Municipal President of Hueyotlipan Luis Angel Roldan Carillo, Visual Artist and founding director of El Centro Cultural, Pedro Avelino Alcantara along with dancers from Tlaneci, a Mexican folk dance group, and San Simeón Carnival dancers will attend the event and spend the week in Jackson.
Thursday’s event starts at 5:30 p.m. with the opening reception for the “Window to Our World” exhibit in the Center Commons, which features paintings by Avelino Alcántara and photographs by Erik Susano Sánchez that depict life in Hueyotlipan. Students from the Culinary and Hospitality Program at Central Wyoming College will prepare Mexican-inspired food.
Then at 7 p.m., cultural performances will kick off with opening remarks from Avelino Alcántar, Governor Cuéllar Cisneros and Jackon’s Mayor Hailey Morton Levinson. A short documentary film, “Dos siglos después (Two Centuries Before)” will be screened, followed by folk dance performances by Tlaneci and the San Simeón Carnival dancers; showcasing regional folk dances and Huehuey dancing, which is specific to Tlaxcala during the season of Carnival.
Doherty said she hopes this event can become an annual celebration.
“This event is a cultural celebration that pays tribute to the Mexican immigrant population in Jackson, using the arts as a bridge to connect our communities,” Doherty said.
