July 31-August 6, 2003

music

Traffic, Jams

THE New Mexico: Astrid Hadad played ranchera and rock, and joked bilingually with the Gateway crowd.

Selling folk music south of the border at Puerta de las Américas.

by Mary Armstrong

Look at any map of the American continent: Mexico is the hinge, the fulcrum where energy shifts between north and south. Mexico City, perpetually among the top five most populated cities in the world, is a magnet for all the country’s indigenous groups trying their luck in town. It is Mexico’s hyperactive heart.

It can also be like a slightly tipsy carnival, a swirl of color, sound and scent. Past midnight, mariachis in sparkling charro suits rove blocks and blocks from their homes in Plaza Garibaldi to the Eje Central. They stroll the many-laned boulevard to flag down your car or cab, competing for the chance to be the band you hire for a serenade. Mexico City loves music and entertainment. What better place to host the Puerta de las Américas (Gateway to the Americas) conference?

The Gateway, held in June, was more than ambitious: equal parts music, theater and dance, both cutting-edge and traditional. More than 3,000 people took part in the conference and over 15,000 attended the concerts, which were well-publicized. Often, the SRO halls had to turn people away.

A network of showcases in different venues were slung across that traffic nightmare of a city, and managed to accommodate just about everybody. Conference attendees who know the city either opted to cut short their afternoon activities at the elegant Palacio Postal to start the schlepping -- showcases started at 6 p.m. far from downtown -- or resigned themselves to missing the first half of the evening's performance.

Overconfidence landed me so late at the ballet folklorico that I caught only the last dance. Worth it, though: a stageful of swirling color and classically altered folk dances and music. Purists coughed and said "fakelore," others smiled and evoked "Appalachian Spring," a fine tribute to tradition. The best tribute to tradition though, was seeing the suits let down their hair at parties, dancing the down-home versions of the steps modified by the various ballets folkloricos. The same folks who won't offer an indigena a job that doesn't have a mop in its description were dancing the traditional dances with great vigor. Think freestyle flatfooting or buck and wing, to get a sense of the looseness.

At the cocktail party after the first evening's show, the indigenous community band marched out of the Bellas Artes auditorium, leading everyone to the lobby where the tequila ran freely. (Cuervo was a major sponsor.) The band played on and when they got to the final huapango, it was a beautiful sight to see the suit and his equally formal lady dancing in the traditional style. Up on the same landing was their antithesis: the young and hip, tight jeans and a huapango that mixed the belt-buckle polishing of the sexiest merengues with the traditional stomping.

Janet Braun, conference director for the North American Folk Alliance, attended la Puerta for the express purpose of widening contacts and seeing artists who have not yet ventured north of Mexico. She is in the process of scheduling panels at the next Folk Alliance (San Diego, February 2004). For her, the Marketplace -- two floors of booth after booth of artists, presenters, agents and arts organizations -- was invaluable. Also trolling for talent and contacts was Bill Smith of Eye For Talent (the agency that books folks like Kepa Junkera and Les Yeux Noirs, who have upcoming gigs at the Art Museum). He loved the conference and, like Braun, vows to attend next year. But he preferred the showcases to the booths. One of the groups he first heard at the conference, Sonaranda, will soon be available for U.S. tours through his agency.

Highlights: Voz en Punto mixed the suppleness of Manhattan Transfer and the imagination of The Mills Brothers and applied it to Mexican music. The a cappella quintet performed everything from folk tunes to mambo, with a bit of classical thrown in, just 'cause they can. (Give them a listen at www.vozenpunto.com.) Chuchumbé plays the liveliest dance music from Veracruz and is among the handiest at getting the suits in the groove (www.chuchumbe.com).

Astrid Hadad, with her extremely flexible group, los Tarzanes, was her usual socially conscious self. Knowing she had a bilingual crowd in attendance, she made sure to deliver her sardonic comments in two languages. For her showcase, the conference arranged entry to the nightclub where her current show, La Cuchilla, is in residence. Hadad takes the popular heartbreak songs and puts them in a hysterically funny but politically fine-tuned frame of reference with a band that can switch from ranchera to rock and back within two measures and never pop a bead of sweat. Hadad has a New York-based manager actively looking for work for her in the States.

For more information, go to www.puertadelasamericas.org.