UNDER the leadership of artistic director Linda Ronstadt, the San Jose Mexican Heritage and Mariachi Festival seems to get more ambitious in scope with each passing year. This year’s festival, Sept. 15–26, features Los Lobos and an outdoor concert at Plaza de Cesar Chavez with Latin dance fusion ensemble Ozomatli, but the centerpiece is the debut of a revolutionary take on mariachi.
An epic multimedia theater piece mixing dance and drama with live music performed by Mexican vocalist Eugenia León, along with Mariachi Cobre and Mariachi Los Camperos de Nati Cano, ¡Adelita! The Women of the Mexican Revolution tells the story of the soldaderas, female soldiers who fought in the Mexican Revolution.
Ronstadt personally selected producer/director Dan Guerrero—known for pulling off huge spectacles for the Kennedy Center, the Los Angeles Opera, New York’s Apollo Theater and others—to bring the show together. The L.A.-based Guerrero, who was also recently named the festival’s creative producer, spoke to Metro about how he does it.
METRO: When Linda Ronstadt approached you with this idea, she already had the theme. How did you shape it?
DAN GUERRERO: The first thing I said to her is that I would really like to make it relevant to today. Even though we’re talking about the Mexican Revolution, we needed to tie it in with today’s events. So toward that end, we are concentrating on battles along the border, because as you know there’s quite a bit happening there, and the state of Chihuahua in northern Mexico. Mariachi music was very much influenced by norteño music, as she explained to me. She’s the smartest woman on the planet. She explained how it all worked together. I also said that I didn’t want to do the same mariachi show you see all the time, everywhere. They’re fabulous, I don’t want anybody to think I’m saying they’re not, ’cause they are. But the first thing I said is “I don’t want any big sets with church bells.” So we have all projections, there’s a designer I’ve worked with many, many times, Daniel Foster, and we have a screen the entire width of the 52-foot stage, and we have visuals throughout the entire evening. That’s our set. Sometimes it’s historic footage, sometimes it’s designs and colors. Instead of a drop that you see all night, or a set, you will have a whole panoramic, epic feel throughout the night.
How did you approach telling the story of these women who fought in the Mexican Revolution?
I wanted to make her real, the soldadera. Who was she really? What kind of woman was that? What would possess her to leave her village and pick up the rifles and go off to battle? Toward that end, I’ve had a wonderful writer from Tucson, Dan Buckley, that Linda knows very well. We’re the Tucson Mafia. I was born there, both my parents were born and raised there. Linda was born there. Our fathers knew each other … in fact, she’s in the documentary I did on my dad that aired on PBS. Anyway, I wanted to bring her to life. I have a wonderful actress who will be a soldadera. She comes out several times and speaks in first person. So rather than someone saying “they used to do this, they used to do that,” she brings the soldadera to life.
How do you pull off a show like this when it’s impossible for all of the collaborators to actually come together until, in many cases, the day of the event?
It has to move like clockwork. Even the Kennedy Center, I just did a huge Arab arts and culture concert in the opera house there in January. There was a 165-piece symphony orchestra from Egypt, a 120-member children’s choir from Syria, a dance troupe of 60 from Oman. I mean, this was huge. I rehearsed—tech, everything—from 2 to 6, and we were on live to a black-tie audience at 7:30. That one nearly killed me. It’s very challenging to do the kind of thing I do. There’s no stop-tape, no “let’s redo that,” or “let’s rehearse for a week.” You just go in. Of course, I’m working with pros. It’s everybody working like a dog, and being the ultimate professional, that gets it done. It’s very fun. It’s aged me terribly.
¡ADELITA! The Women of the Mexican Revolution
Saturday, Sept. 25, 8pm
SJSU Event Center, San Jose
800.745.3000
$40–$125
