(Seguin) — Teatro De Artes De Juan Seguin is hoping you can join it as it celebrates its 40th anniversary.
This Thursday and Friday, the cultural arts organization will not only be celebrating the last four decades, but it will also be looking at what’s in store for its future.
Helping to recognize the accomplishments of the non-profit program is Dr. Yvonne De La Rosa, who serves as Teatro’s executive director.
“Teatro came about I would say around the 1970s when career educators Vickie De La Rosa and Maria Guadalupe Betancourt had an experience at their elementary school that they were teaching at and also at the middle school that they were teaching at and through that experience, they noticed that the children did not understand the Mexican-American culture and from that, they said, okay, there is something missing in the community. What is that piece? So, they started having focus groups in the 1970s outside of church of Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church also in their homes, in other people’s homes to find out what the community wanted so that their kids could learn and know about their culture and so that’s why it started. In 1982, it was incorporated by Homer and Vickie De La Rosa and Maria Guadalupe Betancourt which was then turned right back over to the community where they inducted two more board members, Mary Ellen Martinez and also Professor Juan Rodriguez into the fold of creating Teatro and this was always community based. This was from listening to parents of what they wanted for their children and for themselves and going and moving forward in creating that educational piece that was missing in formal education,” said De La Rosa.
De La Rosa says the program is excited for its annual recital and welcomes the generations of students and community supporters.
“We have a strong community in Seguin. That we are people of resiliency and that we take pride in who we are and where we come from and I think of the 40 years experiencing what I have experienced being a part of Teatro and now in charge of Teatro as the executive director, I’ve been able to see families upon families who have come to Teatro for some informal education around the Mexican American culture, our art, our history and so it’s been wonderful to see where we were in 1982 to where we are today,” said De La Rosa.
De La Rosa says in celebration of its 40-year anniversary, Teatro invites the community to a pair of events being held at the cultural arts center.
She says that’s all-in preview to Friday’s recital at Texas Lutheran University’s Jackson Auditorium.
“So, what we did for the 40th anniversary, we’ve opened up the building and brought out a lot of our archives so that people can see the trajectory of 40 years – all that we have accomplished and then get to see some of the costumes that we have here. So, that’s Thursday from 10 a.m. to 12 (noon) and then we have a Community Platica (Talk) where I’ll be speaking at 12 o’clock so we have a multitude of things that are happening this week that are in conjunction with the 40th anniversary recital,” said De La Rosa.
As for the recital, De La Rosa says volunteers and families for the last several weeks have been preparing their costumes, dances and instruments for the event which also includes a Cinco de Mayo celebration
“That evening we are going to be showcasing our Ballet Folkorico De La Rosa, our Mariachi Juan Seguin. We are going to have musical accompaniment by Mariachi Azteca de America for all of our dancers. Alejandro Luis Guerra who is our program coordinator will be also playing his accordion for our dancers. We have Juan Cabrera who is a harpist out of San Antonio who is coming in to showcase his harp skills. We will be showcasing our outstanding citizens which is the 40 years of Teatro’s Board of Directors. We will have a proclamation reading. We will have Grupo Danza Guadalupana from Seguin and all I can say is we are blessed. We will also be unveiling our new 40th anniversary logo and the backdrop that was created by Artist Mario Garcia and the fourth and fifth graders at Barkley-Ruiz Elementary School out of San Antonio ISD, “said De La Rosa.
De La Rosa says this weekend’s recital and Cinco De Mayo celebration will also serve as a jumpstart toward the next 40 years.
“What I envision for the next 40 years is talking again to the community to see where they are wanting to move us forward in the next 40 years, but we are also wanting to build a state-of-the art cultural arts center on our property here at 921 W. New Braunfels St. It can be a two to three story building that will have the components of everything that we need – classrooms, a kitchen, a big kitchen for culinary classes also space for our dancers, spaces for our musicians, practice rooms, a community computer lab. Those are the things that we are moving towards so that we begin to bring more programming to the community but always at the forefront of our mind is what is the community wanting? And how can we provide that education for them? said De La Rosa.
Teatro’s recital and celebration gets underway at 7 p.m. Friday at TLU’s Jackson Auditorium.
The event is free. An event schedule for other activities can be found on Teatro’s Facebook page.
The recital is being funded in part by 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 other local businesses and individuals.