Mexico's top chefs to cook for MAP

BY MARIA GALLUCCI
The News
March 12, 2010

Open-faced torta sandwiches filled with spicy chorizo. Marinated jalapeno peppers stuffed with fiery shredded chicken. Veracruz-style vegetables smothered in a bold mole verde sauce. Oaxacan chocolate cake covered in cajeta.

Hungry yet ?

Mexican cuisine for centuries has been defined by a widespread regional diversity that offers richly flavored and heavily spiced dishes. The national gastronomy has evolved over the past 10,000 years from the basic “masa,” or corn dough, into the thousands of plates and meals that define the country’s cooking today.

At the Museum of Popular Art (MAP) in Mexico City, 10 of the nation’s most celebrated chefs will dish up a buffet of secret family recipes and traditional favorites as part of a fundraiser hosted by the civil group “Friends of the Museum of Popular Art (AAMAP) to support the cultural institution. The event, which takes place Monday, March 22 at 1 p.m., is titled in English, “Gastronomy in the History of Mexico: Dishes from the Era of Independence and the Revolution.”

Chef and food historian José N. Inturriaga explained that following the conquest of Mexico by Spain in 1521, a gastronomic amalgamation began as a pre-Hispanic and indigenous heritage blended with new ingredients and techniques from the Spaniards. He said the process peaked by Mexico’s independence in 1810, and that the country had consolidated characteristics that continue to define its cuisine in the 21st century.

“Many of the dishes in our presentation are the culmination of fusions during three centuries of colonial rule in Mexico,” he said, adding that waves of immigration from France, Italy, the Middle East and parts of Asia in the 19th century have also contributed culinary traditions to Mexican cooking.

Mónica Patiño said that the MAP event was in essence a rescuing of this era of “mestizaje,” or mixing. The chef next week will serve up a dish of chicken in a sauce of red and green tomatoes.

“The Spanish might have left, but we can still note the soul of their cuisine in our own,” she said. “Our cuisine continues to be heavily influenced because food is not something dead, it’s not a rock or a pyramid, it’s a living thing that continues creating new generations and adaptations.”

Edgar Núñez concurred, adding that “Gastronomy is not something static; it continues to evolve while always taking from our roots.. I cook with an understanding of what we are, that we are what we eat.” Núñez, head chef at the San Ángel restaurant Sud 777, is expected to serve steamed fish with crust of dusted “chapulín,” or grasshopper, and a sauce of mango pico de gallo with butter of “chicharrón,” or pork rinds.

Chefs cooking up main dishes, soups and entreés include Carmen Ramírez Degollado, Susana Palazuelos, Alicia Gironella de Angelli, Patricia Quintana and Laura B. de Caraza Campos. An ample array of cakes with pineapple, chocolate and “guanábana,” or soursop fruit, will come from chefs Maria Teres Ramírez Degollado and Mexico’s so-called pastry ambassador, Paulina Abascal.

Haitian voodoo band sings a spiritual revolution

BY MARIA GALLUCCI

The News

Jan. 29, 2010

As news about Haiti storms the headlines following the recent strike of a disastrous earthquake, the musicians of Lanbi Ginen are hoping to put out a different message about the despairing Caribbean nation – one of energy, vibrancy and hope.

“Haiti is a community that sings and dances, even in its most difficult moments. The greatness richness that Haiti has is its culture, and for us, it is natural to express and spread this richness,” said singer Evans Cadet, who organized the group in 2007, a year after moving to Mexico City from Haiti with his wife, Carmelita Cadet.

The group has stepped up with the rhythms and beats of Haitian voodoo songs, performing in neighborhood concerts to raise support for Haiti, and even releasing a freshly-penned song “Pienso en Ti” (“I Think of You”) to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for campaigns related to post-earthquake relief efforts.

Guitarist and jazz student Djuvens Colas also shared his personal story with the Mexican press during a recent fundraising event, explaining how he had initially lost contact with his wife and two-year-old son, both living in Haiti, following the Jan. 12 tremors. The family got in touch after several anguishing days, and Colas said he joined the event in “thinking about the pain and needs of those who are still there.”

Mexican percussionist Omar Hernández explained to The News that, “Music can open our hearts and comfort our sufferings…this is when we must sing and play rhythms so that hope can arrive to those who have lost everything and light their paths to finding a new dawn.”

With all eyes and ears on Haiti since the earthquake, Evans said he hoped that Lanbi Ginen could help promote a more positive perception of Haiti through voodoo music. The group is also planning to release its first album, titled “Invitación Voodoo” (“Voodoo Invitation”), sometime this summer.

“Lanbi Ginen” in Haitian Creole figuratively means a call for a spiritual revolution where peace and harmony, not weapons and power, are guiding forces. Members in the band also include Carmelita as vocalist, Haitian musician David Charles and Mexican guitarist Juan Carlos Aguirre.

“When people hear the word ‘voodoo,’ they think of witchcraft, black magic and very dark things. People don’t know much about Haiti as it is. We want to make known our true culture and identity,” Evans said.

Aguirre admitted that his first impressions of voodoo conjured images of hexes and abracadabra, but after talking with Evans, Aguirre saw the religion as one of love and positive spirits.

As in Mexican shamanism, he said, “In this phenomenon produced by music, all of the senses are focused in the present and as one dances to the rhythm of the drum, his mind shuts off, allowing the ‘me’ to disappear and to be part of the moment. That is where everything is possible and the soul expresses itself freely. (Music) is what moves the body, and not the mind.”

Aguirre said that in both Mexico and Haiti alike, “The essence of our communities is not in its misfortune nor in those who abuse or manipulate it, but rather, it is in the people who are full of energy and hope and fighting to preserve life.

“This is why it is so important that people know this (voodoo) music and experience its new fusions and forms of artistic expression, as the message is all the same: solidarity, respect, love for the earth and for each other,” he said.

Evans added that, “Voodoo music leaves the soul and comes back to the soul, because voodoo music is spiritual. I don’t consider Lanbi Ginen as my band; the band belongs to the spirits, and I am their channel to transmit this message of peace and harmony. We sing often to the spirits and invoke their names, and the way that people dance and jump, this energy that people feel, it is another spiritual presence.”

The musician noted that while Lanbi Ginen plays songs from traditional voodoo rituals, the group gives the tunes a more universal and commercially appealing twist. A typically community-sized choir, for instance, has been reduced to a five- to seven-member band, and guitar notes have replaced some traditional drumbeats to make the songs more approachable for a wider number of audiences. The group still sings mostly in Creole, although the band fuses voodoo with international influences such jazz, rock, blues, hip hop and Calypso music.

“Lanbi Ginen is not just a Mexican project, because even in Haiti, the youth are no longer singing voodoo. We’re rescuing this music so that it doesn’t die, and we’re doing it in a more global way so that it doesn’t just remain a music for Haitians,” he said.

Carmelita said that, “I feel very lucky to have this privilege to sing and express who I really am, my identity, my culture and, above all, to let people know what voodoo is in reality.

“Lanbi Ginen is mixing and unification, where everyone and everything will eventually meet. It’s also the symbol of a New Haiti, a dignified and prosperous nation with its own identity,” she said.

MORE INFO:

Lanbi Ginen

For more details about the group, write to lanbiginen@yahoo.fr or visit Evans Cadet on Facebook.com.

Nahuatl classes teach new lessons about the past

BY MARIA GALLUCCI

The News

Jan. 28, 2010

“Quen Tica?” María Rebeca González asked her students as they settled into plastic chairs in the empty, whitewashed classroom. “How are you?”

“Cenca cualli,” they responded. “Very well.”

González and her class of nearly 10 students are proof that Nahuatl, the language of Aztec rulers and ancient civilizations in Central Mexico, is still a living language. No longer resigned to collecting dust in museum galleries or archeological studios, the glyphs of Nahuatl are being summoned time after time by Mexicans to teach later generations about an often-misunderstood ancestry.

“When people begin to speak the language and read it, they begin to open a window towards our great past and all the knowledge and wisdom of our ancestors, and this strengthens us. You can see how our self-esteem grows,” González said from in front of a large dry-erase board, where Luis Miguel Chávez drew the daily glyph – one of 18 – assigned to that particular Thursday.

González offers classes in Nahuatl twice a week and year-round at the Casa de Cultura Azcapotzalco in Mexico City. For the past 10 years, she has taught its iconography, vocabulary, grammar and poetry to psychologists, mathematicians and language aficionados of nearly all ages. The class also puts on public presentations four times a year, celebrating dates such as the Mexica New Year on March 15 and Day of the Dead on Nov. 1, and also commemorating the rise and fall of Tenochtitlan, the Nahuatl name for the Aztec empire on which Mexico City was established.

“We’re trying to bring the community as close as we can to the truth. Our goal is not to exaggerate anything, but to always be citing our sources. Our objective is to learn the language so that it is not lost and to familiarize ourselves with the richness of the culture,” she said.

At each biweekly class, the teacher uses faded dictionaries in 16th-century Spanish, modern textbooks with glossy covers and black-and-white photocopies to walk students through a language that many unknowingly have already begun to speak.

“‘Xoxolatl’ and ‘chocolatl’ literally spell out ‘bitter water,’ but mean ‘chocolate,’” she said. She pointed out the slight variations between the Nahuatl and Spanish spellings for the Aztec cocoa drink that Spanish conquistadores sweetened into a rudimentary form of the chocolate we know today.

Mexico’s food vocabulary is replete with still more transformations. The tomato is a “xitotomate” or “xitomate” in Nahuatl and “jitomate” in regional Spanish. The thick cornmeal dough drink “atole” was first dubbed “atolli” in the indigenous language. The starchy, leaf-wrapped “tamalli” is now spelled “tamal” in Spanish.

Mexico City neighborhoods such as Xochimilco, Tlalpan, Tlatelolco, plus countless other districts in the State of Mexico like Naucalpan and Tultitlan, reflect a linguistic legacy dating back in Central Mexico to the 7th century.

Although many community workshops like González’s advertise classes in Nahuatl, the language is spoken in so many dialects that variations in more scattered and rural communities might sound completely different than the more uniform version taught in classrooms. Around 1.5 million people today speak Classic Nahuatl in the State of Mexico, the Federal District, Puebla, Hidalgo, Morelos, Guerrero, Michoacán, Veracruz, Oaxaca and Durango. The language is also being studied by native English speakers curious to understand the culture and by European residents whose heritage originated in the land of the Aztecs.

Originally spelled out in glyphs painted on stones and carved into impressive monoliths, the language has since adopted the Latin alphabet, lending itself to an incredibly ample library of poetry, codices, grammar guides and “huehuetlahtolli,” or formal discourses given at weddings, funerals and other proper events.

Alonso de Molina’s 1555 publication, “Vocabulary of the Castilian and Mexican Language,” was one of the first Spanish-Nahuatl dictionaries. Although the friar became literate in Nahuatl to spread the Catholic faith amongst Mexican communities, the book remains crucial to documenting Nahuatl in its written form. The National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and its Institute of Historical Investigation (IIH) have also played an essential role in documenting Nahuatl poetry in its Latin letters and in Spanish translations.

The revival in cataloguing and learning Nahuatl, however, is due in great part to Miguel León Portilla, an 84-year-old Mexican anthropologist and historian whose publications in the 1940s brought Nahuatl literature and poetry into the public eye. His book “Nahuatl Philosophy” explains how the Aztecs attempted to understand, question and inquire about the world.

In his poem “Cuando muere una lengua” (“When a Language Dies”), he writes, “When a language dies/ everything in the world/ oceans and rivers/ animals and plants/ neither think nor pronounce/ signs or sounds/ that no longer exist.”

Eduardo Lid Rico Domínguez said at a recent study session that, “It is very important to dispel the notion that speakers of Nahuatl, according to the Spanish, did not write. All of our lives, and even today in school, they tell us that ‘the Nahua people didn’t know how to read or write.’ Now is the time, with our teacher, that we understand that they did read, they did write, and how they did it.”

The student, who is also studying Italian at a university, added that when the Spaniards first came to Mexico, the colonizers interpreted indigenous glyphs as straightforward symbols. The national image of an eagle perched on a cactus and capturing a snake, for example, was not understood as a metaphorical concept uniting a nation and community, but rather as a nonsensical and literal translation.

“The language has a very important philosophical weight,” said Juana Sanchezcoviza D’Ramírez. “It is infinite what we can learn from Nahuatl. There are many insights into the conquest and indigenous points of view that have been lost.

“It is very important that we not forget our traditions, because every country has lineage in each of its roots; it is like a tree. We’re learning Nahuatl so that we don’t lose this, and so that in the future, younger generations can continue with these traditions, with this vast pool of knowledge,” she said.

Graciela Olvera Zépez added, “We are so absorbed in foreign things, and while the cultures of other countries are all beautiful, we are not looking at ourselves from within.”

Tinsmith family inherits tools of the trade

BY MARIA GALLUCCI
The News
Jan. 21, 2010

Ask Salvador and Mauro Rangel Rodríguez what the best part of their artisan tinwork is, and they'll repeat the same phrase over and over again like a mantra: It's handmade. 100 percent made by hand.

The father-son duo is part of a six-member and family-run tinsmith business that on a weekly basis churns out around 15 full-length mirrors and a handful of lamps, picture frames and angel statues from a humble workshop in Ecatepec, in the State of Mexico. The enterprise has already grown far beyond its small shop in Mexico City's Ciudadela crafts market and is reaching a high-end clientele in the United States, South Africa and Japan.

“This is the inheritance that our ancestors have left us, and that our families continue to work,” Salvador said from inside the Centro Histórico shop while standing in front of a wall shining floor to ceiling with embossed and hole-punched tinwork, or “hojalata.”

“Today, there are more machines and tools, but our work continues to be more rustic than that. We haven't lost our tradition, and our products have a higher value and uptake as a result of being handmade,” said the tinsmith, who was born in Houston and maintains business ties there.

Artesanías Rangel has been selling its wares at the Ciudadela since 1975, although Salvador said he had been honing his skills as an “hojalatero,” or tinsmith, for 10 years longer. As he learned the trade from his father, who learned the trade from his father, the tinsmith has passed the legacy down to Mauro, who said he would undoubtedly teach his own offspring the traditional tin artisanry.

“It's good that [my children] learn it so that the business can continue generation after generation, so that it continues to be 100 percent Mexican, and not China-made, and so that Mexico will always remain a country of artisans,” Mauro said.

The tinsmiths offer a variety of decorative touches made from sheet metal, bronze and copper, including sacred heart plaques, multi-pointed Moravian star lamps and glass-lined showcases. More utilitarian pieces offered in the form of bowls, platters and plates would bring an antique and homespun touch to any table.

The mirror, on the other hand, remains the family operation's pièce de résistance, with an infinite variety of free standing, hanging and smaller vanity mirrors offering a range of designs. Delicate etchings in smooth metal sheets create a puzzle-like look or an elegant floral design on the mirror frames. A meticulous series of punched holes or rough stamping can form tiny buttons or a widespread series of waves, curves and textures.

“Every year we put out new models. Our inspiration comes from our imagination. It starts by sketching, or sometimes you see a design in dreams and draw it when you wake up. Every piece is unique,” Mauro explained, adding that custom designs are also available.

Before the details, however, come the materials. The “hojalateros” begin by dipping thin sheets of iron into molten tin, a process that coats the sheets with a sleek corrosion-resistant shield. The lightweight tin can then be folded, cut, soldered and hole-punched into whatever the tinsmith's whims dictate.

Salvador noted that the biggest hardship the artisan family faces revolves around the rising prices of primary materials, as artisan work often requires large investment and capital, both financially and physically.

While Artesanías Rangel remains the only tinsmith shop in the Ciudadela, and in most of Mexico City, for that matter, the artisan tradition is flourishing in the state of Oaxaca and charming colonial cities such as Guanajuato and San Miguel de Allende, where craftsmen have gained international acclaim for their tinwork.

The tinware craft first took off in London in the 1630s, and it became a reputable office in the Americas through British colonization in the 17th and 18th centuries. The popular folk art took off with the Spanish conquistadors across the northern Mexican territory, which today includes United States entities such as California, Nevada and Arizona, among others. The Museum of Spanish Colonial Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico today boasts an impressive collection of the metallic crafts.

Tinsmiths have since peddled their trade down into central and southern Mexico, where demand from international collectors and crafts fans has resulted in a lucrative export business for some artisans. Customers in general are increasingly seeking a one-on-one connection with artists and artisans, opting to shell out slightly more cash for higher quality and handcrafted goods, rather than purchase a cheaper, machine-made piece shipped in from some faraway country.

“In our business, there are families behind every single product, not just any odd worker,” Salvador said. “What has been missing [in society] is the value of getting to know the artisan, which is very important.

“This is the way of living for many of our families, so our responsibility is to keep moving forward, to give great service to our clients and to earn respect and acceptance within our market. This is what we have learned to do, and we're not going to leave it behind,” he said.

Fashion festival favors screen over runway

BY MARIA GALLUCCI
The News
Thursday, Jan. 14

Lights. Camera. Fashion.
That's the main idea behind A Shaded View on Fashion Film (ASVOFF), an international style film festival set to screen in Mexico City later this month.

The 90-minute show, now in its second edition, includes competition pieces, documentaries, features and installations studying the “drama, power and personification that fashion evokes and commands on screen,” according to ASVOFF.

Since its September 2009 debut at the Passage du Désir gallery in Paris, the typically three-day festival has traveled to fashion capitals around the world. In Mexico, the films will be shown for one night on Wednesday, Jan. 20 at the Teatro Metropólitan in the Centro Histórico.

Diane Pernet, festival curator and fashion critic, photographer and designer, recently talked with The News about the project, which is produced in Mexico by the Trendsétera marketing boutique.

The News: How did you develop the idea for a film festival dedicated to fashion, style and beauty?

DP: It all started about ten years ago. I was making low-fi documentary films on designers and other creative [types] and thought that it would be great to create a fashion film festival, but at that time, there just was not enough material.

In 2006, Mark Eley, of the brand Eley Kishimoto, asked me to make a road movie for the launch of their menswear brand. I was in the support van for the Gumball 3000 road rally, which went from Trafalgar Square to Monte Carlo, or 3,000 miles (4,828 km) in six days. My blog's Los Angeles correspondent at the time saw the film and asked me if I wanted to project it in L.A.
A few days later, [Mexican designer] Enrique Gonzales, or EGR, sent me a film that he had made. I liked it and posted it on my Web site, and that is where and when the idea for my first fashion festival was born. So, Mexico City via EGR played a very important part in the birth of my fashion film festival.

In September 2008, ASVOFF was launched at the Jeu du Paume contemporary art museum in Paris.

The News: What does the festival's title mean, and to what does it refer?

DP: A Shaded View on Fashion Film is the name of my blog, and ASVOFF is an extension of my blog. “A Shaded View” refers both to my sunglasses and my interests in fashion, film, art and architecture.

The News: How did you see the need for a project like this? What void do you think the festival fills?

DP: Since I was a child, I have been interested in both fashion and film. To join the two seems like a natural progression to me. My degree is in filmmaking and I was a designer for my own brand in New York City for 13 years. As a fashion journalist, I've seen thousands and thousands of fashion shows, and over the past few years, I've been feeling that for the most part watching models walk up and down the runway seems very last century.

I'm not saying that fashion films will replace runway shows, but it's not such a bad idea. At any rate, it is another platform for designers and filmmakers to interact and reach a worldwide audience. Another point is that in the current financial crisis, it seems a bit outrageous to spend $50,000-plus for a seven minute fashion show that will reach a maximum of 500 people whereas a fashion film can be enjoyed in a cinema setting or reach hundreds of thousands of viewers via the Internet. The exposure helps to establish the brand.

The News: What are the main objectives of the film festival, and what do you hope that viewers will take away from it?

DP: My dream with the traveling film festival is to discover new talents everywhere we go and to be able to showcase them in future festivals. I am interested in how fashion and film can support and strengthen each other. Often directors do not understand the power of fashion and are somehow afraid of it.

ASVOFF is international, so the idea is to find talents from all around the planet. ASVOFF is launched in Paris, and then it travels. The 2008 debut led to screenings at the Guggenheim Bilbao in Spain, the Chelsea Arts Club in London and Cinema Rise X in Tokyo.
I think brands would be better served with a film and an installation. It's not as though designers have never used films before in place of shows, but it is more recognized as a valid way to communicate and reach volumes of people all around the world. That combined with the rise of e-commerce makes the creating of a film a good choice.

Fashion demands movement, and although I love a beautiful spread in a magazine, I also enjoy seeing things that a frozen fashion image cannot provide. Another objective of the festival is that it will inspire the viewers to go out and pick up a camera and collaborate and make a film.

The News: Why else is it important that the Paris-based festival travel around the world?

DP: The launch of the festival is in Paris, but the content is completely international. Fashion films are about what is to come for the future. Everyone from Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent (YSL) and Prada to unknown but emerging designers are opting for using the medium of film to express their fashion.

The News: Could you elaborate on the concept that the festival studies the drama of fashion on screen? How does the festival evaluate these aspects?

DP: Fashion and film have been in bed together for a long time. In the late 1970s, Guy Bourdin showed amazing short fashion films, but it has not been until the past few years that fashion films have really taken off. Fashion nurtures and inspires on-screen ideals of glamour; actresses spark desire in their fans, stars need that perfect dress for the red carpets, and designers are only happy to satisfy their [clients'] needs.

The genre of fashion film combines art, film, photography and an acute sensibility for fashion. This edition, we decided to separate the films by the designer's role in the filmmaking process. If a designer or brand commissioned a film and therefore retained some kind of control over the end result, we grouped these films together and called that section “Communication.” If the film was created by artists, filmmakers and stylists and had as its sole objective to express their vision of fashion or beauty, without knowing the designer's intentions or wanting to further them, we called this group “Reflection.” So the more art- and fashion-friendly films would come under this heading.

For more details, visit www.ashadedviewonfashionfilm.com

Los Kitsch leads local electroclash scene

BY MARIA GALLUCCI
The News
Jan. 8, 2010

If the electroclash movement - a fusion of New Wave, synthetic pop and electronic dance music - has recently lost some of its steam in Europe and the United States, the musical genre has found a second wind in studios and on stages across Mexico.

The young musicians of the Mexico City-based Los Kitsch, for one, have found budding success with their electroclash tunes among a group of fans mostly born just before the movement's start in the mid-1990s.

The rock-pop group is set to release its first EP next month, a five-track disc that will hit the streets on February 2. Songs are already available free of charge on the Los Kitsch's Web site and Myspace page, where the band says it receives around 300 hits, or clicks to listen, on a daily basis.

“In Mexico City, there are many bands similar to the [electroclash] genre, but as far as we know, we're the only band here who actually plays this style of music,” said Diego Huidobro, who plays guitar and synthesizer in the two-member group.

Pamelo Merodio provides the band's punk-like and atonal vocals, and although the group began two years ago with three additional members, today invited musicians and guest bands accompany Los Kitsch in recording tracks and performing live.

Electroclash music began hitting concert halls and airwaves in Munich, Berlin, New York City and Detroit more than a decade ago, but the genre truly gained international recognition after a 2001 electroclash concert in New York put the underground movement on the map.

New York-based deejay Larry Tee coined the movement's terminology shortly thereafter, crafting a name derived from the 1980s electropop bands who have principally influenced the genre. As the electroclash scene has slowly faded in the United States and some European cities, the genre is gaining new ground in places such as Mexico City, Barcelona and Rio de Janeiro.

While variations of electroclash might feature stronger notes of punk or harder electronic rhythms reminiscent of nightclubs, Los Kitsch offers a light blend of electric guitar, quick and catchy beats with simple, repetitive lyrics in English and Spanish.

Songs like “Give Me” and “Dance,” for example, have a very pop-oriented and upbeat feel, with slightly deadpan vocals and loud guitar riffs keeping adrenaline levels high throughout the tracks.

“No Puedo” (“I Can't”) and “Radio Tonite,” on the other hand, slow down the party tempo a bit for a more mellow, yet edgier, sound.

“Our songs are about the everyday and about having fun,” Merodio explained, citing as inspiration Icelandic musician Björk, U.S. electroclash group Le Tigre, and folk singer Bob Dylan.

Huidobro added, “The lyrics are basically about the happenings and problems of post-adolescence,” topics that are particularly relevant to the pair of 21-year-old musicians.

The guitarist, however, noted that his and Merodio's age has been more of an advantage than a roadblock for the up-and-coming group.

“It's good to start young, because we have more time to seek out the right path, and with all the support we've received from the [Grabaciones Jamaica] studio and from those who have more experience than we do, we've had a much easier time with our project,” he said.

Since its start, Los Kitsch has steadily progressed from an Internet-focused project posting songs and videos online to a group that gives energy-infused performances across the country. The duo is set to perform shows with invited musicians in Puebla and Guadalajara later this month, as well as an EP-release show on February 2 at the Imperial rock club in Mexico City's Roma Norte neighborhood.

The band has also scored commercial recognition from major labels, including Nike, Red Bull and guitar company Gibson. Converse de México features the group's latest single “Corazón” (“Heart”) on its Web site, and Mexican beer giant Indio includes Los Kitsch among the site's featured Latin American bands.

Huidobro said that he hoped to take Los Kitsch this year to more prominent stages at Latin American festivals and throughout the region. He noted that while the group will likely release a second EP this year and possibly a complete album, the discs would be sold more for the cover art than to earn cash from the music.

“We give away our music, but what we like to sell and what people have asked us for is the visual art” produced by local artist “Sutra,” he said.

For more details, visit www.loskitsch.com or www.myspace.com/loskitschband

Drive-by Skits: Mexico City theater group brings theater to the people

BY MARIA GALLUCCI
The News
Friday, Dec. 18

Imagine sitting at home one evening, loafing on the couch and flipping through the channels, when a knock raps on the door. Curious, you turn the knob, opening up to a group of eager-faced actors asking to come inside. And to use your living room for a rehearsal.

The concept of such spontaneous and unexpected performances is the brainchild of Seres Comunes (Common Beings), a Mexico City-based theater collective that coordinates the at-home shows through its Salas de Urgencias (Emergency Room) project.

After wrapping up its second year with the impromptu theatrics, the group is preparing to bring rehearsals to more homes and other unconventional spaces, such as cantinas and cafeterias, in 2010. “The idea is that this creative laboratory can serve to make the spectator an accomplice,” Alfonso Cárcamo, artistic director for Salas de Urgencias, said from his home office in the Centro Histórico.

The project essentially works like this: During a two-month period, a group of actors, directors and playwrights will walk around knocking on between 20 to 30 doors around the Santa María la Ribera neighborhood.

In each living room, rooftop or café, the group will perform various stages of the play, from rudimentary readings to a complete run-through. After each performance, the crew engages the viewers and collects feedback to add to the play. Hosts are invited to view the final production at the nearby Sergio Magaña Theater.

“It is the perfect strategy to draw in the public and convince people that the theater is accessible, both economically and thematically,” Cárcamo said.

Seres Comunes actress Naomy Romo added, “It's no longer a piece of theater that's shown behind this velvet curtain. It becomes much more accessible and personal.”

The idea for the grassroots project began in 2007 in Cárcamo's apartment, when his Seres Comunes colleague Luis Ayhllón presented an informal reading of his play “Los caracoles estresados” (“The Stressed Snails”) to a group inside the home.

After fielding comments from the audience, Ayhllón showed his progressing rehearsals inside 15 random spaces in the Federal District, the State of Mexico and in Veracruz. A final performance debuted in a summer theater festival in La Paz, Bolivia.

By summer 2008, Mexico City's Secretariat of Culture adopted the concept as a pilot program to implement in the communities surrounding the Sergio Magaña Theater, a centrally located stage with a low turnout rate.

“People around the theater just stopped going, for various reasons. They didn't like the play, they thought it was too expensive, they didn't know the lineup,” said Romo.

Through Salas de Urgencias, however, the program managed to draw in more than a thousand viewers to the theater in 2009 alone, with a set of 21 “interventions,” or in-home rehearsals, and eight final shows from February to March, and an additional 32 interventions and four shows in July and August.

The roster also included widely known Mexican choreographer Antonio Salinas, who carried out a series of dance performances throughout the year. Next year, the program will expand to include cycles from February to March, June to July, and October to November. In addition to theater and dance, interventions in 2010 will include a musical component as well, and final performances will also be shown in the Centro-area Teatro del Pueblo (Community Theater) and the Tlatelolco Cultural Center.

Cárcamo said that while many times people refuse to let a bunch of strangers into the privacy of their homes, those that do welcome the theater group inside become very excited and energized as they take part in the creative process.

“The key word here is 'complicity,'” he said. “The idea is that when a movie or TV show ends, you can no longer see the actors. But with theater, when the play is over, you can converse, share ideas or have a drink with the actors.”

The artistic director added that by visiting more humble homes and meeting residents with lower levels of education, both the hosts and Salas de Urgencias members have learned that quality theater is not just a pastime of profound intellectuals or high-income viewers.

“In Mexico, people keep their distance from the theater, because many times it feels untouchable, and so the audience is left with nativity plays or grade school shows,” he said.

“The solution that we've found is to present contemporary texts with professional actors to the public, and we have reached around 3,000 people [through these shows] in our two years of work.”

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