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Vaqueros and Corridos from Mexico and the
U.S.
Featured at the
24th National Cowboy Poetry Gathering
Elko –
The National Cowboy Poetry Gathering ‑‑ the premiere
festival celebrating the expressive arts of ranching and cowboy
culture ‑‑ observes its 24th year beginning Saturday, January 26
and running through Saturday, February 2, 2008 in Elko, Nevada.
This year, the Western Folklife Center, producer of this
signature event, welcomes vaqueros from the Sonora
region of northern Mexico and the western United States to the
Gathering, where we will celebrate our shared legacies of land
and livestock, enjoy our traditions of poetry and music, and
explore the future of ranching culture and the West.
The 24th National Cowboy Poetry Gathering will also
feature corridos, a traditional Mexican ballad popular in the
rural ranching communities of Sonora, Mexico and also performed
in Mexican-American communities across the United States.
Corridos convey stories of places and people key to
understanding a community’s social values and cultural heritage.
And like cowboy poetry, older classic corridos continue to find
relevance alongside newly composed corridos about contemporary
concerns.
This Mexican cultural program is part of the Western Folklife
Center’s effort to invite cowboys from other parts of the world
‑‑ including Australia, the British Isles, Mongolia, Colombia,
Brazil, Argentina and France ‑‑ to the National Cowboy
Poetry Gathering to share their culture with their
counterparts in the U.S. “For several years now, we’ve been
conducting these cultural exchanges, and they have become an
important part of the Gathering,” explains Charlie Seemann,
Western Folklife Center executive director. “Our guests teach us
that we may be continents and oceans apart, but we share basic
philosophies and principles common to horse and cattle culture.
And despite language barriers, we can communicate through music,
poetry, foodways and the other traditional arts that sustain and
inspire us all.”
The Mexican program at the 2008 National Cowboy Poetry
Gathering will feature rancher Don Beto Cruz,
who will travel from the remote village of Cucurpe in northern
Sonora to share his repertoire of corridos including “El
Huaraqui,” a ballad about a good horse trainer who was thrown
off his horse and killed, and “El Corrido de Luís Donaldo
Colosio,” about the assassination of Colosio, a presidential
candidate, and written and composed by Don Beto.
Cruz will perform with fellow Sonoran Jesús Garcia,
who is known for his collection of songs about legendary
vaqueros, horses and horse races, cattle rustlers and local
tragedies. Members of the musical group Pablo y su
Ventarron will perform songs from their home state of
Jalisco, as well as their own songs about significant events
taking place in their new home of Elko, Nevada.
In addition to these performers, the 24th National Cowboy
Poetry Gathering will also feature the following programs
related to Mexican ranching culture:
Presentations of Mexican culture would not be complete without
food. The 2008 National Cowboy Poetry Gathering will
offer workshops and demonstrations of traditional foodways from
Mexico. The Savor Sonora cooking workshop will
highlight the region’s thin, grand-sized handmade flour
tortillas, carne asada and green chile salsa. Make a Mexican
Home-Style Brunch will include traditional family recipes
and stories.
Other workshops scheduled during the Gathering that focus on
Mexican vaquero traditions include Horsehair Rope Making –
Sonora Style with vaquero rope maker Jesús Garcia,
a corrido songwriting workshop for youth presented by
ethnomusicologist Juan Díes, and a Latin dance
workshop for beginners. An evening dance will feature spirited
south-of-the-border music including rancheras, polkas, waltzes
and more.
The Western Folklife Center’s Wiegand Gallery will feature
Vaquero!, an exhibit showcasing ranch-related photographs
and hand-crafted artifacts of Mexican and Mexican-American
vaqueros living and working in the Pacific Northwest, the Great
Basin and the Sonora and Sinaloa regions of Mexico.
In an effort to encourage discourse and solutions to shared
problems, ranchers from both sides of the border will come
together in a roundtable discussion to consider common issues of
environmental and economic sustainability, and to share
characteristics unique to ranching in Sonora, Mexico.
Folklorist Norma Elia Cantú will give the 2008
Humanities Lecture. A professor of English at the University of
Texas at San Antonio, Cantú has published extensively in the
fields of folklore and literary studies. She will use her own
family history and scholarship to connect vaquero culture and
work style with that of the American cowboy and show how the
poetry and literature of the West has been influenced by these
traditions.
The purpose of the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering ‑‑
known simply as “Elko” to many ‑‑ is to present and preserve the
traditional and contemporary arts created by people living close
to the land in the American West. Through poetry, music,
stories, handcrafted gear, film, photography, food and more, the
Western Folklife Center strives to convey the richness as well
as the challenges of rural life in the West. In recent years,
discussions of rural issues have become an integral part of the
Gathering, as leaders in the conservation movement have come
together with ranchers to find much common ground in an
atmosphere of collaboration and concern for the future of the
West.
Started in 1985 by a small group of folklorists, poets and
musicians, the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering has
become an annual ritual for thousands of people who value and
practice the artistic traditions of the region, and are
concerned about the present and future of the West. Hundreds of
cowboy poetry gatherings have since taken hold across the West
and the nation over the last 23 years, as the Elko Gathering has
reinvigorated a tradition that never ceased to be a part of the
lives of cowboys, ranchers and rural westerners. In 2000, the
U.S. Senate recognized the cultural value of this tradition and
the event responsible for its renaissance when it passed a
resolution naming the Elko Gathering the “National” Cowboy
Poetry Gathering.
The Gathering will feature performances by close to 60 poets,
musicians and musical groups, including new faces and returning
favorites (see attached list). Special exhibits, workshops,
films, lectures, panel discussions, ranch dances and late-night
jam sessions, all contribute to the depth, richness and
authenticity of this one-of-a-kind event.
For more information about ticketed shows and workshops at the
National Cowboy Poetry Gathering, please refer to our
website at
www.westernfolklife.org.
Major sponsors of the Gathering include the Bretzlaff
Foundation, City of Elko, Community Foundation of Southern
Arizona, Elko County Recreation Board, Ford Foundation,
International Game Technology, National Endowment for the Arts,
Nevada Commission on Tourism, Nevada Humanities, Nevada Arts
Council, The Southwest Center at the University of Arizona, the
Wallace Foundation, and many more.
The mission of the Western Folklife Center is to enhance the
vitality of American life through the experience, understanding,
and appreciation of the diverse cultural heritage of the
American West. |
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