Bilingual Outdoor June 25th Fest: Revivir la Cultura (Revive the Culture)

 The Mexican Arts Festival on Saturday will celebrate the successful launch of the Revivir la Cultura program. With the leadership of program participants the San Geronimo Valley Community Center Courtyard will host a warm and family-friendly, bilingual and hands on celebration of Mexican culture to share these engaging traditions, sounds and flavors with Marin’s wider community. The event will be free with low-cost activities and authentic food including Mole and kid-friendly quesadillas.

San Geronimo Events programmer Hannah Doress says, “The Mexican Arts Festival is the perfect family stay-cation loaded with fun, authentic & interactive activities, stellar performances as well as meaningful ways to connect with our families, friends and neighbors”

Performer information: Los Cenzontles (Nahuatl for "The Mockingbirds") dig deep into Mexican traditions to promote dignity, pride and cultural understanding. The group has pioneered revivals of Mexican roots music in California and has a popular presence on Youtube. They have shared the stage or recorded with acts including Linda Ronstadt, Ry Cooder, The Chieftains Taj Mahal, Los Lobos & others. Los Cenzontles reinforces Mexican traditions and creates a powerful new hybrid sound - a fresh Chicano voice for a new generation. The group's core members also operate Los Cenzontles Mexican Arts Center in San Pablo, California.

After years of serving local Latinos through its human services programs, the San Geronimo Valley Community Center (SGVCC) has joined forces with the influential San Pablo-based Los Cenzontles Mexican Arts Center (LCMAC) to create a dynamic new Marin-based Mexican arts program Revivir la Cultura (Revive the Culture). 
 
While leading edge arts organizations throughout the nation are considering how best to serve our growing Latino population, LCMAC is a national thought-leader on the subject of integrating Mexicans more closely into the fabric of our Arts infrastructure. Also both the SGVCC and LCMAC run programs that work with community leaders leveraging local talent & knowledge to create programming to serve their own communities (for example SGVCC’s youth-led Green Arts Festival earlier this year) and so are natural partners.
 
The program is co-led byLos Cenzontles Mexican Arts Center’s (LCMAC’s) Lucina Rodriguez and San Geronimo Valley Community Center's (SGVCC’s) Hannah Doress, with the leadership of community volunteers Laura Flores and Miguel Hernandez, the support of many community members and allied organizations, and with major funding from the Marin Community Foundation. Revivir la Cultura’s goal is to identify local community members with traditional Mexican artistic, culinary and/or cultural skills and provide support for them to preserve this knowledge and teach these skills to other community members of all ages.
 
“By identifying and supporting local talent in the Mexican community and creating opportunities to share these skills and knowledge within and without that community, we hope to help sustain these rich cultural traditions.” Says SGVCC Events Programmer Hannah Doress.
 
Regular Revivir la Cultura classes take place in Spanish and attendees have enjoyed classes focused on traditional dance, how to make dishes such as Mole Pipian and Tacos de Crema, and how to make Papel Picado. Between 15-30 people attend each class, which take place once or twice a month.  Program participants have shared these compelling traditions with the wider community in a Fiesta in February and will do so in an outdoor festival on Saturday, June 25th.