by arts and entertainment reports
All the way in Milwaukee,a group of innovative musicians spread Mexican culture with their state’s musical pride. They will be bring the best of their in October.
Son de Madera has been performing Son Jarocho (a folk music genre and dance with roots in Veracruz, Mexico) for close to two decades, constantly buildingsounds to enrich and enhance the sonic landscape of their culture’s traditional music and infuse it with modern sounds.
Two traditional string instruments, the guitarra de son and the jarana, craft a melody set to the cadence of percussive dance, while an electric bass interweaves contemporary layers of foundation to create a unique fusion of the past and today
To learn more about Son de Madera, visit their official website or listen to their music on the Son de Madera MySpace page.
Stimulus leaves out Latino arts organizations
Barack Obama’s stimulus package allocated $50 million for the country’s cultural section, but only a few tens of thousands have gone to Latino organizations.
Many were the called, few were the chosen. According to the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture (NALAC), only 14 artistic and cultural organizations in the United States received support from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), with funds allocated from the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). ARRA, one of President Obama’s first legislative victories, was designed to create new jobs and save others that were jeopardized as a result of the economic crisis.
“We acknowledge that it was a competitive process, but 14 Latino organizations,out of more than 630 beneficiaries of the NEA, constitutes only two percent,” said Maria López de Leon, Executive Director of NALAC, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the development of Latino arts in the country.
In the state of Texas, according to López de Leon, only two Latino organizations received ARRA funds through the NEA: Houston’s Arte Publico Press, and NALAC itself, based in San Antonio (see Table 1 below).
Where did the money go?
ARRA included several initiatives for stimulus purposes. In the art sectors, one of the chief measures included a package of $50 million,to be distributed byNEA, the largest govern-mental entity dedicated to supporting the arts in the United States.
Sixty percent of ARRA funding for the arts was awarded directly by NEA ($29,925,000), and the remaining 40 percent was awarded through local and state agencies.
According to the NEA, of the 2,424 organizations that requested funds directly from them -museums, sym-phony orchestras, art schools, dance academies, and opera companies, among others- only 636 art institutions received some aid.
Most awards were in the $25,000 – $50,000 range.
“I am not sure that the number [14 Latino organi- zations that received fund- ing, according to NALAC] is accurate,” said Sally Gif- ford, spokeswoman for the NEA. “The details of how the funds were awarded are much more complex.”
