Thomas Seymat/The Siskiyou
Alicia Fitterer and Erim Gomez dance the night away to the sounds of California Show at the Latino Student Union’s annual Cinco de Mayo celebration.

Dancing, dance lessons and live music made for an exciting Cinco de Mayo in the SOU Britt Ballroom last Saturday. The event lasted from 9 p.m. until a little after 1 a.m. According to Stephen Perkins, a member of the Latino Student Union, there were about 166 tickets sold at the door and they had close to 100 pre-sale tickets.

The tickets were quite cheap this year: pre-sale tickets were only $8 for students and $12 for general admittance while tickets at the door were $10 for students and $15 for general admittance.

Britt Ballroom was decorated with green, white and red, the traditional colors of Mexico.

It was slow at the beginning but people continued to trail in throughout the night. LSU member Nicole Jolly said, “It is good so far. It is only 10 p.m. so I imagine a lot of people will come after the fight.” The fight that Jolly was referring to was the big boxing fight between Oscar De La Hoya and Floyd Mayweather that started at 8 p.m. and ended around 9:30 p.m.

The band California Show played live music at the dance. LSU president Jose Garcia said, “We have been in contact with the band since January, they have CDs out and have record deals so we were doubting that they would come out for us.”

“We are really stoked with the band California Show,” said Jolly.

After the dancing lessons from Jorge Tovar and Tessa Benedicktus started, people seemed to really enjoy themselves as both singles and couples spread out on the dance floor. The dances taught were the salsa, meregue, bachata, cumbia and the reggaeton.

“Even though we just had a few couples they were enthusiastic and it was a lot of fun,” said Tovar.

“Dancing to live music is much better than dancing to a jukebox,” said SOU student John Hampton, who enjoyed the dance lessons. “It was nice to have an event like this on campus. The music was great.”

“We are just trying to share the Latin culture with others,” said Tovar. “We are trying to celebrate an important day for us and the United States.”

Cinco de Mayo is the celebration of the initial victory of Mexican forces in the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862.

“It was a good turn out and everyone seemed to have fun,” said Perkins.