Film on the rise of the mariachi movement in Tucson receives grant
Mariachi Tucsonense
Word arrived today that the 2013 edition of the Cine Plaza at the Fox documentary series – this time on the rise of the mariachi movement in Tucson – has been chosen to receive a $5,000 PLACE Initiative grant from the Tucson Pima Arts Council.
Producer Daniel Buckley says work is already underway on the film which will trace Tucson’s mariachi and folklórico dance roots from its earliest days as a club at El Casino Ballroom in the early 1950s through the birth of the city’s first mariachi, Mariachi Tucsonense, its first youth mariachi, Los Changuitos Feos, the dawn of folklórico with Angel Hernandez, the birth of the Tucson International Mariachi Conference, the mariachi and folklórico programs in the school and so much more. The film will aspire to show the social and cultural impact these art forms have had on Tucson and the rest of the world, and the ways that this movement has changed the social and political face of Tucson.
This P.L.A.C.E. Initiative Grant is designed to leverage and enhance resources and talent to implement arts based civic engagement projects that deal with issues of tolerance and or civil society in Tucson and Pima County. The issue of cultural and civic belonging is central to this initiative-–how to understand and accommodate cultural difference in matters of civic participation, how to build a tolerance of diverse views: religious, cultural, aesthetic; and how to enhance the understanding of the common good.