www.loscenzontles.com

Located in San Pablo, California, Los Cenzontles Mexican Arts Center (LCMAC) is an artist-driven organization committed to the performance and production of Mexican-American arts in the San Francisco Bay Area. The group aims to increase the inclusion of a Mexican-American aesthetic into the fields of American and World music.

LCMAC was founded in 1994 in response to rising social tensions among Latino youth due in large part to an influx of Mexican immigrants into San Pablo. Since its inception, Los Cenzontles has implemented programming that addresses the needs of both new and existing communities, an approach that is reflected in their artistic practice. For example, Los Cenzontles recently collaborated with African American blues artist Taj Mahal on the Album American Horizon to produce a song cycle rooted in musical traditions from both the African American and Mexican American experiences.

Los Cenzontles artists also function as researchers who often travel to Mexico to work with practitioners of authentic traditional art forms, which they then transmit to a younger generation through LCMAC’s arts education program. As teachers, the artists of the Los Cenzontles performing group work with the LCMAC’s students to explore the evolving nature of Mexican-American experiences.

Los Cenzontles offers 200 students opportunities to attend 36 classes in music, dance, and arts and crafts each week at the LCMAC School for the Arts. Students are immersed in ensemble groups as early as possible, allowing them to learn from instructors and each other. This also affords opportunities for performing at LCMAC events, helping many students achieve their goal of joining a touring group that performs in festivals across the country and in Mexico.

As Eugene Rodriguez, Executive Director, explains, Los Cenzontles Mexican Arts Center is a “micro-arts and culture- ecology. We research, teach, create, perform, etc. It is all one system.”

In addition to its prolific musical output, Los Cenzontles has produced a series of three documentaries that illuminates the organization’s mission and passion: “Pasajero: A Journey of Time and Memory”; “Fandango, Searching for the White Monkey”; and “Vivir (To Live)”. The clip below comes from “Vivir (To Live)”, and is one of many to be found on the group’s YouTube channel.

A simple Internet search on “Los Cenzontles” will yield an overabundance of informative and entertaining links. These are just a few to get you started:

The Pedagogy of Intangible Heritage: Los Cenzontles and Mexican Folk Music

http://www.communityarts.net/readingroom/archivefiles/2006/05/the_pedagogy_of.php

Los Cenzontles’ Touring Group website

http://www.themockingbirds.info/