- As part of the festival’s activities, FEMSA Foundation will present two exhibitions from FEMSA Collections.
- Cuba and Coahuila will make their cultural wealth visible as guests of honor.
- The public will be able to enjoy 110 performances.
- Face-to-face events will be held under a strict health care protocol.
Mexico, Mexico City. July 22, 2021. – For the eighth consecutive time, FEMSA Foundation, Coca-Cola FEMSA and OXXO will participate as sponsors in the International Cervantino Festival, which takes place in the city of Guanajuato during the month of October every year.
In this edition, FEMSA Foundation will present two exhibitions from FEMSA Collection: La primera lluvia en el desierto. Diálogos Colección FEMSA – IEC (The first rain in the desert. Dialogues FEMSA Collection – IEC), whose curatorship was carried out jointly by FEMSA Collection and the Guanajuato’s State Institute of Culture. The exhibition presents a dialogue on issued related to this year’s International Cervantino Festival’s theme: identities through the dialogue of artists of different generations. It will be presented at the Conde Rul Museum, in the city of Guanajuato. The second exhibition is a video art exhibition with works from FEMSA Collection that reflect on the human being and their environment, which will be presented in the roundabout of the Museum of Art and History of Guanajuato, in the city of León.
For its 49th edition, The Cervantino International Festival (FIC) will transform into a meeting of performing arts in a hybrid format, to meet again with the audience from October 13 to October 31, 2021, with 110 performances: 81 in the cultural venues of the state of Guanajuato and 29 on digital platforms, betting on reaching a diverse and wide audience.
This edition will have the participation of 20 countries: Germany, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Cuba, Spain, United States, France, Georgia, Greece, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Peru, Mexico, United Kingdom and Canada – the Quebec region.
The program’s official presentation, which took place at Palacio de Bellas Artes, was attended by the Federal Secretary of Culture, Cervantino International Festival’s General Director and the Governor of the state of Guanajuato, who agreed on the importance of this festival, which brings together human beings from different latitudes of the world to show their art and share it with those who see and hear them.
The person in charge of the country’s cultural policy highlighted that, as guests, Coahuila and Cuba remind us of the taste for life and culture in a very dramatic moment for humanity.
They also stated that Guanajuato is ready to receive the artists, as well as the various face-to-face and digital audiences. Open spaces were also adapted for the exhibitions and will have strict health care protocols. Lastly, they mentioned that through art and culture, there will be a dialogue that nurtures the spirit and reason.
The Secretary of Culture of Coahuila was also there representing the Governor of the state, as well as the Cultural Advisor of the Cuban Embassy in Mexico, Mr. Waldo Leyva, the Academic Secretary of the University of Guanajuato, Sergio Antonio Silva Muñoz, and the Municipal President of Guanajuato.
The hybrid programming aims to provide a cultural offering that helps preserve the health of the artists, the public, the collaborators and the staff. In face-to-face events a strict health care protocol will be carried out: people will have to wear face masks at all times, apply antibacterial gel, keep healthy distance, have their temperature taken when arriving, and controlled access to the venues will be mandatory, among other measures that will be subject to the entity’s epidemiological traffic light.
The Cervantino will bring together music of very diverse genres, dance, theater, literature, visual arts, film, photography, digital culture and other artistic disciplines and cultural activities to delight attendees and online audiences.
Cuba and Coahuila are the country and the state guests of honor in this 49th edition, and they will begin their participation in an inaugural show by Formell and the Van Van, as well as the Orquesta Filarmónica del Desierto, Coahuila de Zaragoza, who will offer a musical feast where Cuban and Mexican roots will be recovered.
Various Caribbean rhythms and genres will arrive through the music of Septeto Santiaguero, José María Vitier Cuarteto, El Cobre Steel Band, and Hectico y Aramís, representing the Cuban trova. Attendees will also enjoy the music of Ray Fernández and Eduardo Sosa, as well as that of Alain Pérez Quinteto, who will take them through a trip through jazz, flamenco and traditional Cuban son. Daniel Herrera and guests will surprise us with their voices in the show ‘De Lecuona a Manzanero’, as well as Camerata Romeu, the first female string orchestra in Latin America.
Representing the state of honor, among others, there will be the Orquesta Filarmónica del Desierto, Coahuila de Zaragoza, the Camerata of Coahuila, Eliezer Jáuregui Arrazate, Martín Madrigal and Alejandro Vela. On the other hand, the National Jazz Orchestra of Mexico will exalt the Mexican spirit through traditional sounds and Celtillo Folk will show its fresh version of this genre.
This year a co-production project between the Cervantino International Festival and the State Institute of Culture and Theater in Fuga is consolidated. This is the premiere of the play ¿Has visto el Pacífico? (Have you seen the Pacific?), which reflects on the rights of children.
The Digital Culture Center collaborates with the Festival through Humedales Digitales, a program of activities that merges virtuality and the living arts to show the relationship and exchange between environments of different nature: Traces / Faces, interactive installation on the steps of the University of Guanajuato; Metamorphosis “2.0”. Sample of hybrid works.
Online audiences will enjoy the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, the Italian dance group NoGravity, the National Opera Company of the National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature, the CEPROMUSIC ensemble, the National Theater Company, and the China National Opera & Dance Drama Theater company, among others.
As part of the Cervantino para Todos (Cervantino for All) program, the Festival will also have the participation of the Ruelas-Community Theater Project, which will have three productions with a social focus. CEFERESO No. 12 CPS- Guanajuato will present “Líber & Arte” and the online show Verdades Ocultas (Hidden Truths), a work made from the experiences of 90 people deprived of liberty and their difficulties of reintegrating into society.
As part of the cinematographic and literary offer, the guests of honor will offer a set of activities, such as the Identidad (Identity) film series, FIC Incluyente (Inclusive FIC) and the tribute to the filmography of Emilio “El Indio” Fernández.
The museums of Guanajuato will show 24 proposals of photography, painting, sculpture, graphics, popular art, pre-Hispanic art, installation, video art and digital art made in alliance with public institutions of Coahuila, Cuba and Guanajuato. They will also have the participation of plastic arts exhibitions of private institutions such as ‘FEMSA Collection. Resistencia. José Omar Torres; the collective ‘Ceñir lo yermo, Segar el mar’; ‘Espejo de Modernidad’. Leo Matiz; ‘Trazos del Quijote’, and ‘Jazzamoart 70 años’. Some can be visited virtually through mobile devices.
The Cervantino PITCH, a digital art market created to help position artistic shows nationally and internationally, will take place during the 49th edition of the Festival; this will mark the second time it’s there.
The festival will transmit 70% of its contents through public television and radio, as well as through a series of cultural products so that it can be enjoyed straight from the Cervantino’s social networks, the federal Ministry of Culture and allied entities, the Contigo en la Distancia platform and the Cervantino’s app for mobile devices. Access to these contents will be free. The complete program can be consulted on the festival’s official website festivalcervantino.gob.mx.
The purchase of tickets for the face-to-face activities of the 49th edition of the International Cervantino Festival will be through the Ticketmaster system.
Visit the festival’s social networks on Twitter (@cervantino), Facebook (/ Cervantino) and Instagram (@cervantino). Follow the social networks of the Ministry of Culture on Twitter (@cultura_mx), Facebook (/ SecretariaCulturaMX) and Instagram (@culturamx).
About FEMSA
FEMSA is a leading company that creates economic and social value through companies and institutions and seeks to be the best employer and neighbor of the communities where it has a presence. It participates in retail trade through FEMSA Comercio, which includes the Proximity Division and of which OXXO, a chain of small format stores, is a part of. It also has a Health Division that includes pharmacies and related activities as well as a Fuel Division that operates the service stations chain, OXXO Gas. In the beverage industry it operates Coca-Cola FEMSA, public bottler of Coca-Cola products; in the beer sector, as the second largest shareholder of HEINEKEN, one of the world’s leading beer companies with a presence in more than 70 countries. Additionally, through FEMSA’s Strategic Businesses Business Unit, it offers logistics services, point-of-sale refrigeration solutions and plastics solutions to FEMSA companies and external clients. FEMSA also participates in the cleaning products and consumables distribution industry in the United States. Through its Business Units, it employs approximately 320 thousand employees in 13 countries. FEMSA is a member of the Dow Jones Sustainability MILA Pacific Alliance Index, the FTSE4Good Emerging Index and the Mexican Stock Exchange Sustainable IPC, among other indexes that evaluate its performance in sustainability.
About FEMSA Foundation
In FEMSA Foundation our goal is to create positive impacts on people and communities through social investment projects for sustainability. We make a better future for all by working in three strategic areas: the promotion of efficient resource management for sustainable development, the promotion of the integral development of early childhood and the dissemination of Latin American art and culture. For more information, visit us at www.fundacionfemsa.org or follow us on Facebook (/ FundacionFEMSA) and Twitter (@FundacionFEMSA).
About FEMSA Comercio
FEMSA Comercio is a company that generates economic and social value in the countries where it has a presence. It operates different retail chains of small-format stores in Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Peru and Ecuador, among which are the OXXO stores, YZA, Farmacon, Moderna, Cruz Verde, Fybeca and SanaSana pharmacies, and the Maicao beauty stores. It also operates service stations under the OXXO GAS brand. Through its business units, FEMSA Comercio employs more than 198,000 employees and serves more than 13 million consumers every day.
About Coca-Cola FEMSA
Coca-Cola FEMSA, S.A.B. de C.V. is the largest franchise bottler in the world by sales volume. The company produces and distributes trademark beverages of The Coca-Cola Company, offering a wide portfolio of 129 brands to more than 265 million consumers daily. With over 80 thousand employees, the company markets and sells approximately 3.3 billion unit cases through 2 million points of sale a year. Operating 49 manufacturing plants and 268 distribution centers, Coca-Cola FEMSA is committed to generating economic, social, and environmental value for all of its stakeholders across the value chain. The company is a member of the Dow Jones Sustainability Emerging Markets Index, Dow Jones Sustainability MILA Pacific Alliance Index, FTSE4Good Emerging Index, and the Mexican Stock Exchange’s IPC and Social Responsibility and Sustainability Indices, among others. Its operations encompass franchise territories in Mexico, Brazil, Guatemala, Colombia and Argentina and, nationwide, in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Panama, Uruguay and Venezuela through its investment in KOF Venezuela. For more information, please visit www.coca-colafemsa.com
About FEMSA Collection
For over 40 years, FEMSA Collection has sought to preserve, document, consolidate, promote and disseminate modern and contemporary Latin American art. Established in 1977 as part of the company’s commitment to the integral development of its workers, families and their communities, it is currently recognized as one of the most important corporate collections worldwide. Its collection, consisting of more than 1200 works, offers a tour that illustrates the evolution, plurality and richness of artistic production in Latin America during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Through an active program of exhibitions, individual loans for works, publications and various academic and educational activities, FEMSA shares its Collection with the most diverse communities in Mexico and abroad, fulfilling its goal of promoting the dissemination of culture and the promotion of artistic appreciation. The FEMSA Collection is part of the FEMSA Foundation, which create positive impacts on people and communities through social investment projects for sustainability.