50 years of the Cervantino contained in a book

The skill of Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo under the direction of Jean-Christophe Maillot, the legendary classes of Guillermina Bravo and her link with Guanajuato since the beginning of the 80’s; in that same decade the presence of Lindsay Kemp, considered the last body mime of the 20th century, a student of Marcel Marceau; the legendary voice of the queen of jazz, Ella Fitzgerald, during the last of her three visits to Mexico, in 1979, where she shared the edition with another portentous voice, that of Guanajuato tenor Pedro Vargas, nicknamed “The nightingale of the Americas”, and the mournful voice as well as the arrogance of Chavela Vargas that was heard in 1995 and 2003.

There isn’t a single list of the greatest guitarists in history that ranks BB King beyond the top three. The master of blues delighted the public gathered in the Guanajuato capital during the sixth edition of the Cervantino with his chords. Not to mention the presence in 1984 of the Bolshoi Ballet led by the legendary Yury Grigorovich, the most influential man in Russian dance during the second half of the 20th century, or the mythical 1975, or the performance of what they have declared as the best guitarist of flamenco from history, Paco de Lucía, with the presence of the recently deceased Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and Duke Felipe of Edinburgh as distinguished guests.

All this, to say very little about the luminaries of all kinds of arts that have stepped on the stages of the city of Guanajuato that have made the Cervantino International Festival a unique show in the world.

All this memory has been gathered and materialized in the book “Festival Internacional Cervantino. 50 years”, published by the Secretary of Tourism of Guanajuato and the State Institute of Culture of Guanajuato, on the second day of activities of the artistic meeting, for which the Secretary of Federal Culture, Alejandra Frausto Guerrero; the governor of Guanajuato, Diego Sinhue Rodríguez, and the director of the FIC, Mariana Aymerich Ordóñez, as well as officials from the three levels of government and different people involved in the edition.

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The culture that rescued a city

“The FIC, together with other cultural events that have joined it in these decades, is the product of a social phenomenon that deserves a careful study in view of the fact that its matrix and cradle was a city that survived a historical crisis that put at risk its permanence and viability as an urban collective (…) a city that was saved from extinction by culture and art, which is no small thing,” said anthropologist and researcher at the University of Guanajuato Luis Miguel Rionda Ramírez, spokesperson for the 13 signatories of the texts that enrich the edition, among them the cultural manager Carmen Beatriz López Portillo Romano, the opera director, artistic promoter and former director of the late Conaculta, Sergio Vela; the composer, music critic and audiovisual producer Juan Arturo Brennan, and the playwright and theater journalist Estela Leñero Franco, among others.

“The staging of the Cervantino Entremeses meant a watershed in the cultural history of the battered city of Guanajuato. The strength and version of the Guanajuato lawyers drew national attention to become an attraction that was enhanced by the street scene of the century-old and deteriorated Plazuela de San Roque. The assembly became a collective adventure that brought together and involved neighbors, university students, the curious and tourists”, he mentioned.

Thus, over 20 years of hors d’oeuvres, the foundation was forged for what would eventually become the Cervantino International Festival, which made the capital of Guanajuato, due to the vibrant force of its popular culture, a city that had lost its mining vocation. but it undermined the vocation towards the arts and culture and its new livelihood industry, that of tourism.

Frequent friends of the FIC story:

• Folkloric Ballet of Mexico by Amalia Hernández (1978-2021)
• Fine Arts Madrigalists Choir (2001, 2003, 2007 and 2016)
• Horacio Franco (1989-93, 2007, 2008, 2010 and 2019)
• Oscar Chavez, Mexico (1989, 1994, 1997, 2007 and 2009)
• Café Tacvba (1990, 1997 2000 and 2008)
• Tambuco Percussion Quartet (1994-1997, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2005, 2006 and 2008)
• Eduardo Mata (1982-1984, 1986, 1988, 1991, 1992 and 1994)
• National Theater Company (1983, 1984, 1987, 1989, 1990, 2001 and 2002)

The PDF version of the book was widely distributed:

ricardo.quiroga@eleconomista.mx