El Paso: Mariachi Festival at Sunland Park

Mariachi Festival at Sunland, El Paso, Texas. February 2017. Flores Mexicanas.

February 2017

OK, the Mariachi Festival was technically in New Mexico, and not in El Paso, but only just.

Mariachi Festival at Sunland, El Paso, Texas. February 2017. Son de Mexico.

The first and only mariachi festival I attended previously was the 2012 Mariachi Conference in Las Cruces: 

1. An introduction to mariachi and the conference here
2. My first revelatory exposure to matachine dancers here (at the Mariachi Conference)
3. The splendiferous Mariachi Mass here

The Mariachi Festival at Sunland Park occurred in February and it was my second visit to the Sunland Park Casino and Race Track.


Standing room only!

Mariachi Festival at Sunland, El Paso, Texas. February 2017. Mariachi Aguilas de Las Cruces.

Terrific appreciation of the musicians by the audience, with glad calls for "Otra! Otra!" after most of the bands' last songs of their sets.

Mariachi Festival at Sunland, El Paso, Texas. February 2017. Flores Mexicanas.

As with zydeco, cajun, and - I suppose - just about every musical genre - there is a repertoire of song standards in mariachi, which most life-long adherents know all the words to, and thus sing along. This conversation, this connection, between the musicians and audience members, creates that exhilarating oneness, that inter-connectivity, that sense of "us" and "we," that I so love.

I've posted quite a number of videos from the festival here (via a search on my youtube channel with the words mariachi and sunland).

The one below, by Son de Mexico, makes me smile hugely because of its gleeful, rascally showmanship:

In the video below, the all-woman mariachi band, Flores Mexicanas, even includes a harp!

In the video below, featuring Mariachi Aguilas de Las Cruces, you can get an idea of how many mariachi lovers were present:

"Otra, otra!"

Las Cruces, NM: Mariachi Conference: Mariachi music

Mariachi Conference, Las Cruces, New Mexico

After the Mariachi Mass, the second day of a Mariachi Festival was in progress at the New Mexico Farm and Ranch Museum.

Students of mariachi were in competition.

I will admit this: Many of the songs I heard, I couldn't think past chips and salsa in a Mexican restaurant. A pity. Sort of like, for a time, Carly Simon's most famous songs became inseparable from things like ketchup pouring from a bottle.

For example, the pre-ketchup version of Anticipation:

For those of you born before the ketchup commercial, savor the pleasure of the song above, before you watch the one below.  

The ketchup version:

So anyhoo, back to mariachi and the unfortunate Pavlovian association with chips and salsa.

There's much more to mariachi, of course. Here is a beautifully-written history of mariachi, including the people, the instruments, the clothing, the style, and the artistry. I especially like these excerpts: "Mariachi issued from the soul of Mexico like jazz emerged from the spirit of the U. S. .... Mariachi is now a part of America’s musical heritage."


When friends Kate and Pam and I went to Tlaxcala, Mexico, a few years ago, we were the happy listeners of a haunting, romantic song from one of the mariachi group that wandered through the plazas. No thoughts of chips and salsa arose there.

Mariachi, Tlaxcala, Mexico

Shortly after I arrived at the Sunday festival, a boy took the stage. The backdrop to his stage had just as much dramatic presence as he did. 

Mariachi Conference, Las Cruces, New Mexico

Most of the singing was in Spanish, and I'm really rusty in same, so I didn't catch a lot of it. But I noticed that humor played a significant role in the mariachi songs. 

Presently, a woman took stage. I'm assuming her dress is a traditional style for soloists in this musical genre. 

Mariachi Conference, Las Cruces, New Mexico

 Some shots of the student mariachi competitors:  

Mariachi Conference, Las Cruces, New Mexico

Mariachi Conference, Las Cruces, New Mexico

Mariachi Conference, Las Cruces, New Mexico

Mariachi Conference, Las Cruces, New Mexico

  

Mariachi Conference, Las Cruces, New Mexico

  
In watching the competing groups, I saw that showmanship is as important in mariachi as it is in the Georgian dance. Smiles, gestures, confidence, wit ... all part of the big picture.  

One very accomplished group had three of its girl singers approach the judges' table, where they flirted in song and body language in outsize fashion, wooing high scores from the judges. Hilarious; well done. 

Las Cruces, NM: Mariachi Conference: Mariachi Mass

Mariachi Conference, Mariachi Mass, Las Cruces, New Mexico

I mentioned here that the Mariachi Mass was a moving example of how intercultural America is, when at its best.

The video below shows the entrance procession. How many cultural threads can you identify?

The bishop of the Las Cruces Diocese presided over the Mass. He has a charismatic air, a good wit, a good singing voice, and he switched between English and Spanish frequently and smoothly throughout the Mass. In reviewing his vitae, it seems he has a strong interest in civil justice issues. The diocese is 30 years old; Bishop Ricardo Ramirez has been its only bishop thus far.

I hadn't been to a Mass in a long, long time. So I was rather surprised at a couple of new touches. One was the raising of one's forearms in a gesture I associate with evangelical services. Another was that everyone held hands while reciting the Lord's Prayer. Oh, and then ending the Lord's Prayer with the addendum about "For thine is the kingdom, the power, and glory." OK, man, these are definitely Protestant influences that have insinuated themselves into the Roman Catholic traditions. (Not that there's anything wrong with that. Besides, see forthcoming post on cultural claims.)

There were two mariachi bands at the Mass. The celebrity band was Mariachi Cobre out of Florida. The other was a local band, Mariachi Aguilas, from La Mesa. Mariachi Cobre are regular performers at Disney World. They are damn good.

  

If you ever intend to go to the Las Cruces Mariachi Conference's Mariachi Mass, getting there half an hour early is plenty of time to get a good seat. I (and two women behind me) arrived an hour early and, yes, we got good seats, but there were plenty of empty seats languishing while we cooled our heels.

Las Cruces, NM: Mariachi Conference: Matachines

One of the things I love about New Mexico are the layers of culture that thrive here.

Las Cruces, New Mexico: Mariachi Conference, Mariachi Mass, San Jose matachina dancers. Credit: Mzuriana

They couldn't have been more evident than at the Mariachi Mass in Las Cruces on Sunday. I'll try to list the influences in motion at this event:

• Pueblo
• Aztec
• Yaqui
• Spanish (i.e. the country)
• Moors (historically, northwest African Muslims)
• Modern-day Mexican 
• Modern-day New Mexican
• Modern-day American (U.S.)
• Roman Catholicism
• Evangelical Christian
• Spanish language
• English language

Las Cruces, New Mexico: Mariachi Conference, Mariachi Mass, Azteca dancers. 2012. Credit: Mzuriana

At the entrance to the Mass venue, before the Mass began and after the Mass ended, were three dance troupes. Indian? And if so, which? There were commonalities to what I'd experienced thus far in various Indian dances, but there were differences, too.

Las Cruces, New Mexico: Mariachi Conference, Mariachi Mass, San Jose matachina dancers. 2012. Credit: Mzuriana

I looked and looked for information on these dancers, to no avail, til - doh! - as a last resort, I thought to look at the printed Mariachi Mass program that I still had. And there they were, listed under "matachines."

Matachines? What? I was clueless. I soon learned more. Here is a meaty history and analysis of the matachina dance from New Mexico Arts. But in brief, per wikipedia:

The Matachina dance ... is explained by oral tradition amongst most Indian Tribes as "The Dance of the Moors and Christians" and is the first masked dance introduced by the Spaniards. The Moors were driven out of Spain in 1492 and the missionaries introduced the dance to show the superiority of the Christians. The dance was adopted by the people, and today many forms of this dance still exist. Though the dance steps vary amongst tribes the dance formations are all similar. Masks continue to be used, but the style changes from village to village, or tribe.

The introduction of the Dance of the Moors and Christians gave rise to a further range of masked dances, one of them recounting the Spanish victory over the Indians and their eventual conversion to Christianity. These dances are called conquest dances (also a Matachin tradition), and Cortes and La Malinche (his Indian mistress and translator) often appear in them. It's interesting to note that in many versions of this dance, the Indians wear lavish costumes while the Christians are played by children.

The Matachines dance for a deeper religious purpose, since most of them join to venerate either Mother Mary (Our Lady of Guadalupe, Our Lady of Lourdes, Immaculate conception, etc.), a saint (the group usually chooses the saint that pertains to the church they belong to), or simply to worship Christ or God the Holy Trinity, demonstrated by the three forked symbolized as a "Sword of the Holy a Trinity".

As I read the information on matachines (and the above wikipedia excerpt is only a superficial coverage of a complex inter-cultural allegorical dance), I thought: aha! The Indians in Cuzco, Peru, have a similar dance! In that case, the conquistadors are devils. From my journal entry of a long-ago trip to Cuzco during Inti Raymi:  

"Last night I danced with 2 gorillas and got bitten by the devil. It was lots of fun. I also tasted a little of the local liquor; tasted like coconut and was very good. There was a long procession last night through the plaza, with dancers and musicians. ... Annie and I danced with two groups. One group represented the devils and gorillas (with their claws?!). The devils' costumes had a strong similarity to the conquistador costumes. They all wore masks."   

(By the way, it ain't easy to dance at 11,000 feet!)

Here's a sampling of the matachina dance troupe San Jose:

You don't see him in this clip, but in other dances, there was a child dressed in black and charcoal, with a mask. Based on what I've read, I'm guessing he represented the Christian. He didn't dance when I saw him. He stood amongst the dancers.

There was an Aztec dance group also, and I don't know if it falls into the matachina category or is something else entirely. Unfortunately, I didn't get a good video of this group.

Now that I've learned a little about the matachines, I've got to find opportunities to see more.

Bernalillo, New Mexico, has a history of hosting a San Lorenzo Fiesta, which includes matachines. Last year, the event was August 10-11, so in 2013, August 11-12? I'm going to put it in as a tentative on my calendar.