Overview: The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture in Riverside held a free, all-ages celebration of Cheech Marin’s 80th birthday, featuring Aztec dance performances, Ballet Folklórico, a DJ set, a live set from Cherry Bomb Revival Band, and a communal music and dance tradition called a fandango. The event was the culmination of a two-year series of workshops and was supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, Art Bridges, and The Cheech.
Aryana Noroozi
The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture welcomed the community for “¡Vamos de Fiesta,” a free, all-ages celebration of Cheech Marin’s 80th birthday.
Presented in partnership with Art Bridges Foundation and Access for All, the event featured a full slate of Chicano and Mexican cultural traditions: an Aztec dance performance by Xiuh Arte Azteca Chichimeca, Ballet Folklórico, a DJ set from Art Laboe Connection host Angel Baby, a live set from Cherry Bomb Revival Band, and a cake-cutting with Cheech himself.
The day concluded in its final hour with a fandango – not just a performance, organizers noted, but a communal music and dance tradition rooted in the son jarocho—a regional folk musical style—practices of Veracruz, Mexico. Musicians and dancers gathered around a newly built tarima, an elevated wooden platform that doubles as a percussive instrument, its stomping rhythms serving as the a heartbeat to the performance.
The gathering was the culmination of a two-year series of workshops, six sessions in total, held during The Cheech’s free Sunday programming. The programming was supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, Art Bridges, and The Cheech.
Visiting maestros, including Cesar Castro and Sochi Flores from Los Angeles, joined community musicians who had traveled across the region to help “baptize” the tarima before the crowd was invited to join in.
Check out the day through the lens of The Black Voice News.
