Fiesta on the Green

The broad lawns of the Los Angeles County Arboretum in Arcadia were transformed for the night into a cantina twice the size of a football field. Picnic tables were covered in the red, white and green colors of the Mexican flag, in keeping with the theme “Fiesta Mexicana.” The California Philharmonic Orchestra’s third concert in its annual summer series, Festival on the Green.

“This is like a three-ring circus,” said conductor Victor Vener, as he surveyed the crowd of more than 3,000 toting elaborate hampers and an assortment of pinatas, serapes and sombreros. “It’s the most challenging program this orchestra has ever attempted--four difficult classical works, plus 18 mariachi, 18 folklorico dancers, a marimba quartet and the largest percussion section we’ve ever assembled.”

Backstage, in an outdoor dressing room, performers swarmed amid mountains of ruffled petticoats, mantillas and charro hats--the authentic costumes for nine traditional dances from Jalisco, Vera Cruz, Chiapas and Oaxaca. “This is the fulfillment of a lifelong dream,” said dance director Carolina Russek, while applying layers of false eyelashes. “I’ve always wanted to perform these dances with a symphony orchestra.”

Russek, who teaches traditional Spanish and Mexican dancing weekly in Eagle Rock and the San Gabriel and San Fernando missions, admits that the impact is hard on the body. “I’ve had two knee surgeries. There’s a lot of pounding, but we love what we do. Once I even stomped my foot right through the floor.” The discipline has some therapeutic advantages, Russek says. “If you’re angry, you can take it out on the floor, not on each other. When I told the troupe that we were going to dance Carmen Dragon’s arrangement of ‘La Cucaracha,’ they told me I was crazy, but, it’s my favorite number.”

The audience obviously agreed, clapping to the beat.

Serenades by Antonio Ramos and his renowned Mariachi Tlaquepaque--his musical family spans four generations--opened the evening before Vener conducted more complex works, Jose Moncayo’s “Huapango,” Aaron Copland’s “El Salon de Mexico” and “Sinfonia India” by Carlos Chavez, which demands deer hooves, clay rattles, butterfly cocoons and a tlapanhuehuetl (base drum). The Mexican hat dance capped the evening and drew a standing ovation. “It’s amazing,” said Vener’s son Andre, Cal Phil’s executive director, as concert-goers packed up their gear. “Within minutes, the forklifts will be here to remove the sound system towers; more than 100 volunteers will work all night, and by tomorrow, only the band shell will remain, and it will be a quiet park again.”

*

Information for Social Circuits can be directed to Patt Diroll in Los Angeles or Ann Conway in Orange County. Diroll is at [email protected]; Conway at (714) 966-5952 or, by fax, (714) 966-7790.