Queens Theatre's Latino Culture Festival Celebrates Women

Get ready for some mujeres extraordinarias. Over six upcoming days, the Queens Theatre is going to present the 2014 Latino Culture Festival: Extraordinary Women, Illuminated, 11 diverse acts celebrating Spanish-speaking countries and the female portrayers of their cultures. This means tango, bolero, salsa, and mariachis, but it also means drama, a play reading and a Spanish version of Little Red Riding Hood.

The schedule with descriptions of each show and more photos are on the jump page.

•  Glamour Tango, Tuesday July 29th, 8 pm, $30: A multimedia show of music and dance, theatrical set and lighting, created as a tribute to those women who quietly wrote the pages of Tango from the very beginning.
• Cocomama, Wednesday, July 30th, 8 pm, $30: Consisting of women from such diverse places as Cuba, Israel, France, Argentina, Mexico, Oregon and Wisconsin, this group draws from the musical traditions of Cuba, Brazil, South and North America.
• World Beat Folklore Colombia, Thursday July 31st, 8 pm, $30: Carolina La O (below) became famous in the salsa world in the late 1990s, when she was part of Alquimia la Sonora del XXI, a tribute band to the Cuban group Sonora Matancera. She’ll share the stage with Edmar Castañeda, arguably the world’s greatest harpist, who will play Afro-Colombian music with his wife, Andre Tierra, Johanna Castañeda, a singer and a cuarto player and Tierra’s group Rebolú.
• Damas Del Bolero, Friday, August 1st, 8 pm, $30: Ivana Ivanna is a passionate singer. Mariel Sol is an Argentine-Ecuadorian vocalist and songwriter from New York City. Puerto Rico native Gloria Mirabal recorded the songs of famous Cuban composer Julio Gutierrez for the Mozart records. Marlene De La Peña interprets many styles of music, including boleros in her own Cuban way. Elsa Ozuna, a singer from the Dominican Republic, won the OTI Festival in Washington D.C. 
• Ser Feliz No Tiene Hombre (Happiness Knows No Man), Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, August 1st through August 3rd, 8 pm, $20: Colombian actress Marilyn Patiño will revive her one woman show.
  
• Caperucita Roja, Saturday, August 2nd, 1 pm, $14: This bilingual musical re-tells a classic fable while taking the audience on a journey full of dance, song, original music, and comedy.
• Mariachi Flor de Toloache, Saturday, August 2nd, 8 pm, $30: New York City’s first and only all-female mariachi band has nine members — hailing from Puerto Rico, Mexico, Singapore, Germany, Cuba, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, and the United States — who jam on violins, trumpets, guitarron (bass), vihuela (five-string guitar), and guitar.
• Play reading: Cuerdas (Ropes), Saturday August 2nd, 8 pm, free: This play by Barbara Colio tells the story of three brothers: Peter, Paul and Prince, who find themselves at the airport, having decided to travel together to meet their father. They haven’t heard anything from him in over 20 years. Now, he is the best tightrope walker of all time, and performing his latest extravaganza. His desire is to share with his children. Or at least, so says the letter Peter received.
  
• Mujer Internacional, Sunday August 3rd, 7:30 pm, $30: This show features two bands. Fernando’s Kitchen plays a unique fusion of Flamenco, North African and Latin sounds. La Toquilla is led by Alejandra Garcia, a beautiful Ecuadorian Singer, who blends traditional Ecuadorian and Latin American music with world, electronic and rock music. She’s accompanied by a DJ, an electric guitar player with a nice rock sound and bluesy riffs, plus an acoustic guitar player who integrates classical and flamenco scales in traditional way. 

Top photo: Cocomama Musica; middle photo: Carolina La O; bottom photo: Rebolu