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A La Ruta Panorámica: Enriching Latino Audiences through the Presentation of Latino Artists
By Martha I. Dodson, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation
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La Troppa, a band of actors, technicians, musicians
and acrobats from Santiago, Chile. |
La Ruta Panoramica is an inter-state partnership between four of the oldest and most distinguished Latino arts presenters in the northeast part of this country. Pregones Theater (Bronx, NY), Asociacion de Musicos Latino Americanos — AMLA (Philadelphia, PA), GALA Hispanic Theater (Washington, DC), and Inquilinos Boricuas en Accion — IBA (Boston, MA) comprise this unique presenting collective, and each brings its own special experience to the consortium. The purpose of La Ruta Panoramica is three-fold: 1) to develop the structures and mechanisms of a touring residency network for local, national, and international professional Latino artists; 2) to share successful community arts models and information; and 3) to advocate for the role of the arts in community revitalization. Through this partnership, the presenters are working to connect Latino communities with each other and with Latino arts and artists.
Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation has followed the evolution of La Ruta Panoramica since its beginnings. Through support for the network’s planning efforts and grants to support the tours of Latino artists at La Ruta’s venues in the region, the Foundation has provided funding from the National Endowment for the Arts Regional Touring Program to continue the important work of these presenter partners.
La Ruta Panoramica was formed in 1993 when several Latino presenters in the northeast envisioned a network that would support the presentation of work by Latino artists. It grew from a history of informal collaborations and the need to create a touring corridor that could function, not only as a block-booking route, but also as a collective of presenters that shared the ideal of supporting Latino artists in residence. Through their association, the presenter partners could exchange information and ideas on presenting Latino artists to Latino communities and involve artists in the planning of extended residencies. What they envisioned was an artist residency concept that included activities that promoted community involvement and the participation of local artists. To do this, they needed to create a structure that would include the primary presenter partners as well as local partners in each community. La Ruta Panorámica Partners
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Chilean artist, Franklin Caicedo |
During the first three years of La Ruta Panoramica, touring residencies were undertaken with Ballets de San Juan, John Santos & Machete Ensemble, Agua Sol y Sereno, Los Pleneros de la 21, and La Troppa Theater. Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation provided funding for the Agua Sol y Sereno residency at Pregones Theater. During the engagement, the artists gave two public performances, a street parade, four lecture demonstrations for students, and a master class for professional actors.
Next, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation supported the tour of La Troppa Theater through its ArtsCONNECT Program. The tour was a good match for the grants program, whose goal was to support advanced artist/presenter collaborations resulting in a multi-state tour in the region. The tour of La Troppa, a band of actors, technicians, musicians and acrobats from Santiago, Chile, included opportunities for the artists to interact with local Latino artists as well as school children and teachers. In Philadelphia, the Chilean Consulate hosted a luncheon for the group and co-sponsored their performance at Community College.
Recently, the La Ruta presenters have been awarded grants from the Foundation’s ArtsCONNECT Program to support a tour of Chilean artist, Franklin Caicedo, and his ensemble from Argentina. Caicedo has had a long and distinguished career as an actor and singer. Nicknamed "el emperador de las tablas" or "emperor of the stage," Caicedo now directs his own drama school in Buenos Aires and continues to perform on tour.
The multidisciplinary work featured on Franklin Caicedo’s tour is called "El Choma, La Nami y el Gotan." It is a tango-theater work for two actor/singers, one dancer, and a bandoneon player. In this piece, the artists use tango, text and music to narrate the story of a lovers quarrel and reconciliation. The bandoneon, which is an instrument that is traditionally played to accompany the tango, is also highlighted in the work.
A key feature of the Franklin Caicedo tour is the residency activity that will take place in the communities visited by the artists. Caicedo will offer his renowned acting workshop, "El cuerpo y la palabra," or "The Body and the Word" to people interested in drama. Another workshop, "Tango: Tradition and Transition" will chronicle the essence of tango through its musical, dramatic and social contexts. Finally, an introductory dance workshop on the tango will be offered to interested community members. These activities, planned with the artist and with local community organizations, will bring Caicedo’s artistic gifts to underserved Latino populations and set the context for his public performances.
Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation has also provided support for several planning projects taken on by the partners of La Ruta. In FY97, the Foundation supported the planning efforts of the La Ruta partners for a tour of Orquestra de Camera Concerto of Puerto Rico. The group performed a wide range of music, including classical, traditional, folk, and popular work, which allowed the presenters to plan some outreach activities for the tour that would involve local artists in each community. More recently, the Foundation has funded a planning process involving the La Ruta partners and Yuyachkani, a 30 year-old company from Peru that employs indigenous music and artforms in theatrical performance.
Planning is a hallmark of La Ruta Panoramica. Each of the primary partners attends the two-day planning meetings, which are rotated between their home communities. Over those two days, the presenters look at their upcoming seasons and discuss the themes or organizing ideas that have provided the structure for those offerings. They consider the needs that each presenter has to complete their seasons and begin to list potential projects that might meet those needs. Since the group includes theater as well as music presenters, they take turns choosing theater or music touring projects. Occasionally, they choose artists that perform musical theater, or theater with a musical component, such as La Troppa’s tour of "Pinocchio," because they would fit easily into all of the presenters’ seasons. The presenters brainstorm about possible artists that are experienced with touring and comfortable working in a residency mode. The artist selection is a very organic process, but one that has worked successfully for La Ruta Panoramica since its inception.
Residency planning is another key feature of La Ruta Panoramica. The primary partners are committed to planning residency projects with the artists they select. The partners raise funds to bring the artist to this country for two-to-three days during which the artist has a chance to visit each of the venues on the network. Together they begin to discuss the activities that will take place on the tour. When the artist returns home, they can envision where they will work on the tour and prepare accordingly.
Through La Ruta Panoramica, the member presenters have found an opportunity to use the network as a platform for more than just coordinating tours of Latino artists. The collective serves as a forum for exchanging information about touring Latino artists and for reciprocal artist showcasing. Through La Ruta, U.S. Latino artists can be promoted to presenters in Central and South America, just as artists from those areas can be considered for presentation by La Ruta’s member presenters. U.S. Latino artists can make connections with artists in other countries and, through cultural exchange projects, can explore the cultural context of their work. At the same time, international artists can benefit from experiencing the work of U.S. Latino artists.
La Ruta’s primary partners are producing as well as presenting organizations with strong connections to local Latino artists in their communities. The network also functions as a way to showcase local Latino artists to the partners and can support tours of its member producing organizations along the corridor. In this way, La Ruta offers the opportunity for the primary partners to gain a deeper understanding of each other’s own work.
Of great value to the member presenters is the information loop that the network provides. The structure of La Ruta Panoramica makes it easier for members to share information about the issues inherent in serving their respective communities. In this way, the partners continue to develop their own abilities to broaden the experiences of their Latino audiences. The relationships between La Ruta’s members have deepened through conversations about the aesthetics of the work, and their role to support its presentation.
Currently, two of the four partners (Pregones Theater and AMLA) are actively involved in capital campaigns, while a third (GALA) will begin one soon. This activity adds a new dimension to the partnership, as members can share ideas and strategies about their fundraising efforts. Once the organizations have their own facilities, this will allow them to consider ways to use their venues for network projects. Some venues will be more appropriate for artist mentoring work while others will be suited for public performances. Discussion and planning around facility use will inform the broader planning of the network.
Although La Ruta Panoramica is a network that holds great opportunity for its members with several successful projects already accomplished, the collective is not without its challenges. Each of the presenter members has a full workload of their own organization’s activities. Participation in La Ruta involves staff time, fundraising for network projects, and time to direct and produce the touring projects. The members share a desire to make La Ruta succeed, but this has magnified the need for greater resources and staff to dedicate time to the network’s activities and administration. Ideally, the La Ruta partners would like to engage in longer-term project planning but lack the resources to do so at this time. The challenge is to work collectively while continuing to work individually.
La Ruta Panoramica is a fascinating model of regional participation. Latino presenters from Washington, DC, Philadelphia, PA, the Bronx, NY, and Boston, MA, have built on their common goals and shared their individual expertise to enhance the presentation of Latino artists in their communities. Through their efforts and the resources provided by Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation through the National Endowment for the Arts Regional Touring Program, they are enriching their audiences with presentations of traditional as well as contemporary Latino work.
(Martha I. Dodson is Program Officer for Performing Arts and Leadership Development with Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation. Contributors to this article include Rosalba Rolon, Pregones Theater, and Abel Lopez, GALA Hispanic Theater).
National Endowment for the Arts
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