Music and theater will come together to tell the story of three legendary Latin American women when Core Ensemble presents Tres Vidas sponsored by Fresno Pacific University.
Actor Rosa Rodriguez will portray Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, Salvadoran peasant activist Rufina Amaya and Argentinian poet Alfonsina Storni beginning at 7:00 p.m. Thursday, October 6, at Butler Church, 4884 Butler Ave., Fresno. Admission is $15 for general audiences, $10 for seniors and free to students. Tickets available online at eventbrite.com/e/tres-vidas-tickets-25072712157. More information at 559-453-2056.
Frida Kahlo is one of Latin America’s most significant artists, and her paintings are known for their immediacy, frankness and strength. Rufina Amaya was the sole survivor of the 1981 massacre at El Mozote that killed more than 700 civilians and was long denied by the governments of El Salvador and the United States. Alfonsina Storni is Argentina’s most popular woman poet and the first to be accepted as an equal in Buenos Aires literary circles.
Accompanying Rodriguez will be musicians Ju Young Lee, cello; Mikael Darmaine, piano; and Michael Parola, percussion. The show, with text by Marjorie Agosin, features a wide range of music, including popular and folk songs of Mexico, El Salvador and Argentina; vocal and instrumental tangos by Carlos Gardel and Astor Piazzolla; and new music written especially for the Core Ensemble by Osvaldo Golijov, Orlando Garcia, Pablo Ortiz and Manuel DeMurga.
In addition to being a public performance, Tres Vidas is also part of the Literatures (A) Cross-Cultures Conference October 6-8 at FPU. This international gathering will highlight the last 30 years of Hispanic American literature.
Speakers will include Jorge Franco, Raymond L. Williams, Raquel Castro and Alberto Chimal. Franco is a Colombian writer whose awards include Premio Alfaguara de Novela, Dashiell Hammett of the Semana Negra de Gijón and Premio Pedro Gómez Valderrama. Williams is a distinguished professor of Spanish at the University of California at Riverside who has published 15 books. Castro is a Mexican writer and journalist who has twice won the National Award for Journalism. Also a Mexican writer, Chimal has won the National Short Story Award and the Colima Fiction Award.
For more on the conference, go to fresno.edu/event/12496/literatures-across-cultures-conference or call 559-453-7183.