Brief history

Susana Moraleda, Mexican, founded in Rome the Mexican Folkloric Ballet "Los Rancheros" on 7 April 1977, within the after-work association of a well-known international organization, with the sole aim of spreading Mexican folklore in Europe, with no profit purposes.

The arrival of a new ambassador in Rome led an Embassy officer to suggest that Susana prepare a Mexican party with traditional dances, knowing that she had studied Mexican folkloric dance since childhood, and had taken part as a dancer in a professional group of the Social Security Institute in Mexico City. This officer financed the first costumes that Susana had made in Rome itself, in a simple but not inexpensive way. Susana also took on finding those who were to become the dancers: 12 Mexicans passing through Rome, to whom she taught three simple traditional dances to present at the Embassy three months later.

Thanks to the fact that she worked in an international organization, Susana obtained the possibility of holding the lessons in a hall inside the headquarters, on condition that she formally create the group within the after-work association of this organization. The first performances took place at the Mexican Embassy and at the Mexican College (residence of Mexican priests in Rome).

Later, the Group was contacted by the Mexican Tourism Office in Rome to collaborate in tourism development programmes, and thus began a series of events throughout Italy, arousing the interest of some impresarios and giving rise to proposals for shows.

After a series of performances, a substantial number of Italian and foreign participants began to show interest in Mexican dances and in Mexican culture in general, thus making it possible to form a stable group made up of representatives of various nations.

In 1982 the Mexican Embassy proposed the creation of a school of Mexican folklore in Rome, under its patronage and under Susana's direction, but the project was not carried out for lack of subsidies.

In 1985, after the disastrous earthquake that struck Mexico, Susana organized two shows to raise funds to send to the earthquake victims, under the patronage of Caritas Diocesana of Rome and the International Red Cross. About $40,000 dollars of that time were collected and sent to those in need.

In the years that followed, Los Rancheros took part in many other important events.

The Group's activity has involved Susana's whole family: her husband, Nino Dragotto (Italian), is the President; her daughter Marisol, Vice-Director and prima ballerina; her son Luis played the guitar and the vihuela for several years in the first mariachi created within the Group, and later founded the second. Both mariachis now work independently from the dance group. The third mariachi was formed from the second, and the fourth and fifth mariachi from the first. It is the Mariachi Tierra de México of Fiore Angerame that currently collaborates with the Ballet. Susana and Marisol, moreover, periodically go to Mexico for refresher courses in Mexican folklore at the main specialized schools of the capital, in order to renew the Group's repertoire.

The Group has never received any economic subsidy, and has carried out its activity uninterruptedly for already 40 years (as of 2017). It has in turn generated another 4 Mexican folkloric dance groups that operate independently: two in Rome, one in Ecuador, and another in Portugal.

More than 300 people of 28 different nationalities have learned Mexican dance with Susana in Rome. Moments of joy have alternated with moments of sadness, as happens in all groups, but nevertheless Susana has not let herself be discouraged, spurred all the more by her insatiable ambition to spread true Mexican folklore outside her country.

Costumes

Part of the costumes in the Group's possession were kindly donated by the wives of former presidents of the Mexican Republic: Mrs. López Portillo and Mrs. Esther Zuno de Echeverría, thanks to the intervention of one of the Mexican ambassadors in Rome, H.E. Dr. Augusto Gómez Villanueva. The remaining wardrobe was purchased in Mexico on the occasion of the private trips of Susana and of some members of the Group. At present the Group has more than 250 costumes of 15 different States of the Mexican Republic.