(Seguin) — It’s not every year that Teatro De Artes gets to perform its Viva Teatro! Recital and Cinco de Mayo Festival on the Cinco de Mayo. The stars just perfectly lined up or as perfectly as they could following the recent death of one of its co-founders Vickie De La Rosa. Despite looking forward to tonight’s event with a heavy heart, Vickie’s daughter, Dr. Yvonne De La Rosa, says she was quickly reminded about why the organization existed and why continuing this legacy was so important especially to her mother.
“My mother always gave a lot of consejos (advice) to her children and when I say children, it means the people, her children of Teatro and which all of us know are now adults. She says whatever happens, the show must go on and so it’s fitting for us to be in the place that we are right now to honor her legacy and what she wanted for our community and we are grateful for the opportunity to be able to continue on for 41 years the vision of not just the co-founders but of a community. We are here to celebrate our community and our community’s commitment to ensuring that there is a cultural educational aspect to what their children are learning everyday and so, it is bittersweet, I think, for me but in seeing the rehearsals on Monday, it brought piece to my heart to see the amount of people that were sitting in the audience on rehearsal night which was the parents, to see the amount of students on the stage which is about 120 in just our Folklorico program and to see such pride they had to be on stage,” said De La Rosa.
De La Rosa says tonight’s recital at Texas Lutheran University’s Jackson Auditorium will again illustrate the group’s effort to maintain, teach, and celebrate the Mexican American roots, customs, knowledge and traditions through community education.
“We open the doors at 6:30 p.m. to come into Jackson Auditorium. The show begins promptly at 7 p.m. just like Vickie would have wanted. She said we never start late, we always start on time. Last year, we were at capacity. I know that we will be close to capacity this year which is probably close to 1,000 seats that are available. The recital is free but we will have a donation table where people can leave donations that will go directly to Teatro to continue the thriving programming that we provide here in our community and surrounding community and we will start with our opening which is always La Negra from the State of Jalisco which is our Adult II class and then we have 11 regions from Mexico that will be performed that evening. A lot of different styles of dances that they are going to see this evening and then of course, we are so excited to have our Mariachi Juan Seguin performing, not just our beginners but our intermediate and advanced group. They are a young buddy group. They’ve only been together eight months and their directors have done wonders with the program,” said De La Rosa.
Teatro’s Mariachi Juan Seguin is under the musical direction of Co-Directors Carla Medina, Joe Jimenez, Ernest Sauceda, along with instructor assistant Sophia Sauceda and volunteer assistant, Christina Crow. The Ballet Folklórico De La Rosa dancers are under the direction of Co-Artistic Directors Alberto “Beto” Rincón, Tiffany Rangel, De La Rosa, and instructor assistants, Elizabeth Dominguez and Abraham J. Silva.
De La Rosa says this year’s festival features performances from dancers and musicians from Seguin, New Braunfels, Marion, San Marcos, and Luling.
TLU’s Jackson Auditorium is located along Fleming Drive just off of 1000 W. Court St. The event is free.
The production is funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, Texas Commission on the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, Guadalupe County United Way, Humanities Texas, San Antonio Area Foundation, Guadalupe County Community Symposium, H-E-B, City of Seguin and many local businesses and individuals.