Of the many annual offerings making Santa Barbara’s cultural calendar as rich and inclusive as it is, one of the most unique goes by the telling and innately affirmative moniker ¡Viva el Arte de Santa Bárbara! The exclamation points have long since earned their place here.
Launched in 2006 as an offshoot of the UCSB Arts & Lectures seasons, in conjunction with various cultural organizations — and always free to the public — the series pays respects to the vitality and vibrancy of Hispanic culture in our neighboring region, from regional Mexican music idioms outward in the Latin American diaspora. Dance also figures into the programming at times. The residency-based series blends concerts — at the Isla Vista school on Friday night, in Guadalupe on Saturday, and a grand finale at the Marjorie Luke Theatre on Sunday — with workshops and educational settings around the area. It’s a full-service encounter with the visiting artists, versus one-night-stand operations.
Mariachi often figures into the equation of programming, but so does son jarocho, banda, such distinctive artists as Gaby Moreno and Perla Batalla, and hybrid variations, as represented by such respected genre-crossing groups as the famed East L.A. ensemble Las Cafeteras (which made a welcome return to the series last fall) and L.A.’s La Santa Cecilia, settling in for a residency as the new year’s first installment of the series, January 24-26.
Celebrating the breadth of influences from Latin music to rock and vestiges of other world music traditions, the Grammy-winning band happily marries and mixes contemporary and traditional styles. Genre-wise, cumbia, bossa nova, mariachi, bolero and norteño can be heard in their musical ingredient list, along with rock flavors and pinches of jazz.
As the lead singer known as Marisol “La Marisoul” Hernández said in an interview during an earlier visit to Santa Barbara, the group’s sound is “very diverse, which is like our experience. Personally, I always wanted to be in a rock band, but I was taught by street musicians and I was taught all the traditional music. At times, it felt like I had two lives. During the week, I went to school with my friends and we listened to rock ’n’ roll and classic rock. Then on the weekends, I would sing for tips on Olivera Street, singing all the beautiful traditional music.”
She continued, “In this band, we’re able to combine those two lives, to combine this feeling of being from here and from there. We combine that love for the music we heard from our parents and that we love to jam out or rock out with our friends.”
Coming up later this season, ¡Viva el Arte de Santa Bárbara! turns its focus to the all-female salsa group Las Guaracheras, from Cali, Colombia (Mar. 14-16) and then back to Mexico and dance with Ballet Nepantla (May 16-18). In this group, contemporary ballet does a happy dance with traditional Mexican folk dance. In short, the magic is in the cultural and historical blending, a key to the ongoing success of the series, by now an institution always worthy of attention. And did we mention the tasty, gratis Mexican pastries at the Luke Theatre, post-concert?
¡Viva el Arte de Santa Bárbara! is well worth checking out. For more information on the La Santa Cecilia performances, visit bit.ly/42dUUqN.
