Tens of thousands of people will descend upon Civic Center this weekend – this time to celebrate history, not make it.
Organizers expect more than 400,000 people to attend the two-day Cinco de Mayo Celebrate Culture Festival there.
The festival opens Saturday, five days after an estimated 75,000 people, mostly Latinos, gathered between the Capitol dome and the City and County Building to rally for immigration reform.
The festival will take a break from politics, with no speeches or rallies planned, but the reform movement will have a booth at the event.
“We very much are part of organizing the immigration effort, but Cinco de Mayo is an annual event where we celebrate our culture,” said Veronica Barela, president and chief executive of NEWSED Community Development Corp.
Cinco de Mayo is a national holiday in Mexico. It honors the Mexican army’s victory over a larger, better-equipped French force in a battle at Puebla, Mexico, in 1862.
The holiday has been a popular cultural event in the United States, where it is celebrated more festively than in Mexico.
Denver is home to one of the nation’s largest Cinco de Mayo festivals.
This, the 19th edition, offers visitors new attractions in addition to old favorites such as contemporary and traditional Mexican music and dance.
“We also have live boxing going on both days – amateur bouts,” LeRoy Lemos said. The bouts will take place in Lincoln Park between Lincoln Street and Broadway.
Lemos is director of special events for NEWSED Community Development Corp., which stages the festival.
In addition to the boxing ring, there will be an octagon cage for mixed martial-arts fights. The Las Vegas, Nev.- based Ultimate Fighting Championship has popularized this form of competition in this country.
“We’re going to have American Championship Fighting, which is Colorado’s premier mixed martial arts promoter,” Lemos said. “They’re going to be doing exhibition bouts, as well as tryouts to get a contract with the ACF. And ACF contract fighters will be there signing autographs.”
Would-be athletes who don’t like fisticuffs can still test their mettle by trying to score against a world-class soccer goalie.
Power Soccer Academy Denver will bring in Bruno Enrriques, who tended the net for Peru in the 2005 World Cup, to test the local talent.
The U.S. Navy will have a strong presence at this year’s events, with sky jumpers, jet fighters, divers and a flight simulator.
An early afternoon performance Saturday by the U.S. Navy SEALs parachute team, the Leap Frogs, officially opens the festival, although the event runs 10 a.m.-8 p.m. both days.
“A typical Leap Frogs performance consists of 14 jumpers leaping out of an aircraft at an altitude of 12,500 feet,” according to the team’s website. “The jumpers typically open their parachutes at around 5,000 feet by releasing a smaller pilot chute which deploys their main blue-and-gold canopies. After deploying their chutes, the Leap Frogs fly their canopies together to build dramatic canopy-relative work formations.”
Navy divers will demonstrate their skills in a 7,000-gallon dive tank, and festivalgoers can test their pilot skills with the Navy’s F-18 flight simulator both days. The Navy also plans a flyover of F-18 Hornet fighter jets at 5 p.m. Saturday.
Plenty of activities are planned for children, including pint-sized carnival rides, petting zoo, horses and an entertainment stage for children’s acts. Four stages will offer a variety of music, including banda, norteño, salsa, raggaeton Tex-Mex, country and classic rock, performed by national and international record artists, as well as local talent.
And plenty of food will be available.
“There will be 50 food vendors running everything from turkey legs to corn on the cob to funnel cakes and cotton candy to tacos and burritos and Indian tacos to fresh roasted nuts and plenty of ice cream,” Lemos said.
More than 150 exhibitors have signed on to sell their wares, including arts and crafts.
The annual Celebrate Culture parade begins at 10 a.m. Saturday at 12th Street and Colfax Avenue. It runs on 12th to Welton Street to 17th Street to Lincoln Street. It goes down Lincoln and ends at 13th Avenue.
Parade participants display a wide range of cultures, including Chinese, Scottish, African-American and German.
As is traditional, the festival opens Sunday with a mariachi mass at 10 a.m.; Father Jorge de los Santos from Saint Theresa Church officiates. The Aztec dance troupe Grupo Tlaloc and mariachi musicians will take part in the mass.
Staff writer Ed Will can be reached at 303-820-1694 or ewill@denverpost.com.
19th annual Cinco de Mayo Celebrate Culture Festival
MUSIC, DANCE, ARTS AND CRAFTS AND FOOD|Civic Center, Broadway and Colfax Avenue; 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday | FREE|303-534-8342
