China, Festival Cervatino' s guest of honor

by patgarcia | October 4, 2007 at 05:12 am

1340 views | 0 Recommendations | 0 comments

Mexico's most important international art event begins today in the beautiful colonial city of Guanajuato.

China
will be the guest of honor at the International Cervantino Festival, a
cultural festival running from Oct. 3 to Oct. 21 in the central Mexican
city of Guanajuato

The National Chinese Ballet will bring their show The Red Lantern to the Mexican audience, while the Chinese National Theatre Company will present two shows called Flower in the Mirror and Moon in the Water.

The 35th
Cervantino International Festival (FIC) opened on Wednesday in the
central Mexican city of Guanajuato, with a public ceremony in the
city's famous Parque de las Ranas.

At the ceremony where the Mexican and Chinese national flags
were raised, Guanajuato mayor Eduardo Romero Hicks, FIC director Mini
Caire and Yan Wenqing, vice-president of China Arts and Entertainment
Group, jointly lit the Cervantino flame, which will burn for the
duration of the 18-day festival.

"This is a great opportunity to get to know Chinese culture
and traditions. China's millennia-old culture creates a great deal of
curiosity in Mexico," Caire said.

The festival's live performances begin on Wednesday evening
with a show by the Song and Dance Ensemble from the Chinese city of
Jilin.

[q
url="http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90781/6276815.html"]After the
opening ceremony, there was a show of rebozos, traditional long shawls
worn by Mexican women who also use them to carry goods or even
children.

An exhibition also opened on Wednesday with watercolors
painted by Diego Rivera, the Mexican muralist who was born in
Guanajuato in 1886, on display. The exhibition is in the house where he
grew up and which has been a museum since 1975.

The Cervantino International Festival is an annual event that
gathers musicians, artists, and performers from all over the world.
Each year, the festival features one of Mexico's states as well as one
or two foreign countries. [/q]

Baaba Maal ignited the audience with his rythmn

Senegalese singer, star of
the world stage, author of a dozen albums, Baaba Maal is a man with a
mission beyond his music.

“It strengthens my determination to
work harder to contribute more to improving the living conditions of
disadvantaged people of the African continent, especially young people,
whose future is seriously threatened by illiteracy, poverty and
HIV/AIDS. When I am talking about Africa, it is about how Africa will
grow into the new millennium.” Baaba Maal

The Argentinian group Tanghetto delighted the audience with an extraordinary interpretation of electronic tango.

Tanghetto
is an argentine band led by Max Masri (synths and programming) and
Diego S. Velázquez (guitars) formed in 2001. The name "Tanghetto" (the
combination of the words "tango" and "ghetto") was inspired by the
"little argentinas", the communities of exiled argentines living
overseas.

In the mid 90s, Max Masri (in his teens he was one of the last
disciples of the legendary tango maestro Virgilio Expósito) went back
to Buenos Aires from Germany after sharing interesting experiences with
argentine emigrants and, because of that, brought the idea to create a
new musical language, blending tango with modern sounds.

In late 1998 he started working with Diego S. Velázquez and they
began recording and producing their first electrotango tracks. In 2001
this idea was revived, with a modern sound, their own compositions and,
finally, a name for the project: Tanghetto.

October 22nd 2007

[q
url="http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90782/90873/6288014.html"]The
35th International Cervantino Festival, which ended on Sunday in
GUANAJUATO, Mexico, set ticket sales and earnings records, festival
director Mini Caire told a press conference.

More than 58,000 tickets were sold, earning 6.2 million pesos
(about 600,000 U.S. dollars), a 32-percent hike over last year's
revenues, Caire said.

The 19-day festival held in this central Mexican city
attracted more than 384,000 visitors to 168 events and 293 performances
which included dance, concerts, theatre, film, visual arts shows,
master classes and children's events also presented in 23 states and 51
cities across the country.

More than 2,000 artists participated in the performances, with 559 of them from 23 countries, according to Caire. [/q]