Image Not Available

Passing It On: Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program - Exhibit Closing Event - Mariachi Performance

PerformerPerformed by Mariachi Mexico Antiguo

Date2018 March 10

Mediumborn digital video - MTS file

DimensionsDuration: 22 Minutes, 16 Seconds

ClassificationsGraphics

Credit LineConnecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collections

CopyrightIn Copyright

Object number2015.196.275.7

DescriptionVideo of Mariachi Mexico Antiguo performing with Mexican mariachi apprentice Citlalli Hernandez performing on guitarron. They were part of the closing event of the exhibit "Passing It On: Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program," on view at the Connecticut Historical Society from January to March 2018.

NotesSubject Note: A unique regional program marked twenty years of heritage education activities with a new exhibit at the Connecticut Historical Society. "Passing It On: Traditional Arts Apprenticeships" was on view from January 19 to March 10, 2018. The exhibit displayed the work of mentor artists and apprentices from the broad range of ethnic and occupational groups that have participated over the years. Photographs of the artists and their artistic process, quotes relating their experiences and the outcomes of their work, and demonstrations and performances accompanied the exhibit.

Over its first twenty years the Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program has supported 142 accomplished artists to teach a folk or traditional art form to qualified students through the classic apprenticeship model of regular, informal but intensive one-on-one learning over several months, even years. This long-term learning reflects the time it takes to master the often difficult techniques of these deeply rooted art forms. The process encourages close interaction with the highly skilled teaching artist, who transmits not only the artistic skills but also the stories, background, values, and cultural uses of the tradition. More than 464 artists, both mentor artists and apprentices, have participated. The Apprenticeship Program receives support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Connecticut Office of the Arts/DECD and is a partnership with the Massachusetts Cultural Council and independent folklorist Winifred Lambrecht in Rhode Island.

An initiative of the Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program at the Connecticut Historical Society, the Apprenticeship Program connects highly skilled exemplars of a folk or traditional art form with qualified students to teach artistic techniques and cultural knowledge through the apprenticeship model of regular, informal, intensive long-term learning. The program knits together artists from the same ethnic or occupational group living in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, or Connecticut to share traditions and stimulate new learning. The Program also strengthens community festivals, activities, and events by encouraging mentor/apprentice teams to perform or demonstrate results of their cooperative learning at events in each state. These public presentations enhance understanding of the artists, art forms, histories, narratives, and sense of place that distinguish the region and its communities.

Folk and traditional arts express a common aesthetic well known and often beloved within a cultural group. Visual, performance, and occupational artistic activities are treasured, shared, passed down, and taught within families and communities as a way to sustain traditional practices and express identity and cultural heritage. Sometimes these traditions have been continued in America after dying out in their original homeland; others are in danger of disappearing altogether, taking with them invaluable cultural knowledge.

Cultural arts taught through the Program have a serious purpose and function within a community’s life, and real-world applications often arise out of the apprenticeships. Students have gone on to start their own businesses in boatbuilding and stone inscription carving, develop professional singing careers, organize Irish music sessions and dances, repair Laotian temple buildings and statues, and design shoes for relatives’ problem feet. The Tibetan community uses a butter sculpture made during one apprenticeship for Buddhist spiritual ceremonies. Longstanding family traditions in Lebanese liturgical singing and Malian drumming been strengthened with a new generation of performers. A Finnish group in eastern Connecticut has re-energized several traditional practices, building a working sauna at their community hall, developing a weaving cooperative, training folk musicians, and reviving a form of woodcarving that has been nearly lost in Finland.

The exhibit opening reception on February 1, 2018, featured Lebanese singing, Portuguese accordion playing, Albanian dance, Somali Bantu basket weaving, Assyrian lace making, and decorative woodcarving. During a program on February 17, renowned artist Paul Luniw, parish priest at St. Michael’s Ukrainian Church in Terryville, instructed children and adults in the art of pysanky, traditional Ukrainian egg decorating. The work of masters and apprentices on display in the exhibit included hand-crafted shoes, Mohegan pottery, Tibetan painting and carpet weaving, stone inscription carving, Native American wampum carving, and more. An open house on March 10 presented Irish music and dance, Mexican Mariachi music, Tibetan carpet weaving and painting, and Norwegian rosemaling – plus a book signing with Tom Pich and Barry Bergey, authors of a book on America’s National Heritage Fellows, exemplary traditional artists from across the United States, three of whom are in the exhibit as teachers and two of whom performed at this event. The exhibit and programming were made possible by funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Connecticut Office of the Arts, and the Edward C. and Ann T. Roberts Foundation.

Biographical Note: Mariachi Mexico Antiguo, a group of twelve men and women based in Wallingford, Connecticut, is celebrated for its vibrant sound, traditional core, and respectful focus on the traditions of the mariachi genre. Their instrumentation includes guitar, guitarrón, harp, violin, trumpet, and vocals. Established in 2010 by former and current students of local music schools in the Las Vegas area, Mariachi Mexico Antiguo serve as ambassadors of mariachi, performing in Arizona, California, New Mexico, Utah, New York, Colorado, Washington, Wyoming, Connecticut, and the Lowell Folk Festival in Massachusetts. Mariachi Mexico Antiguo has worked with renowned artists such as Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlan, Jose Hernandez and his Mariachi Sol de Mexico, and Jesus “Chuy” Guzman and members of Los Camperos de Nati Cano. They have also accompanied artists such as Beatriz Adriana, Graciela Beltran, Gildardo Alvarez, Juan Valentin, Flor de Toloache, and Placido Domingo.

Members of the group had visited Connecticut several times to teach mariachi music at a new academy for young students, developed in Wallingford’s Mexican community by Evangeline Mendoza. The success of this venture, and the founder’s retirement, led twelve musicians from the group to move to Connecticut from Las Vegas in 2016 to lead the school. Since then Mariachi Mexico Antiguo has become well known for its joyous and authentic performances in festival, concert, church, and community settings. They have won awards including Best Mariachi in the Tri-State Area and Best Mariachi in the East Coast. Mariachi Mexico Antiguo has produced a CD of their music. Current leader of the group Rodbel Virula mentored guitarron student Citlalli Hernandez in the Southern New England Traditional Arts Program in 2018.

Additional audio, video, and/or photographic materials exist in the archive relating to these artists and these events.

Cataloging Note: This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services MA-245929-OMS-20.

Status

Not on view