Metro Art Presents x the Autry Versos y Besos with Las Colibrí

Mother's Day Evening ~ Sunday 5/9 @ 7pm

Airing online only on Metro, Metro Art, Union Station and the Autry Facebook Channels and Union Station and Metro YouTube Channels

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All-female ensemble Mariachi Las Colibrí is the centerpiece of this original Mother’s Day performance of Versos y Besos (verses and kisses), which reimagines living archives and women’s history linking poetry, place and sound.

Inspired by archival materials of the composer and singer, Manuela C. Garcia (1867-1931), currently on display as part of What’s Her Story: Women in the Archives at the Autry Museum of the American West, the filmed performance is presented in partnership with Autry After Hours and staged in Union Station’s historic Ticketing Hall.

Garcia was born on Los Angeles Street to a family of musicians and lived much of her life in the vicinity of Downtown Los Angeles. From memory, she recorded to wax cylinder more than 100 songs for the journalist and ethnographer Charles Fletcher Lummis which are now recognized as mariachi standards, sharing a sonic legacy that resounds today.

The program also includes a reading of an original poem by Amy Shimshon-Santo, accompanied by musician Nancy Sanchez, which reflects on Garcia’s life and recovered story.

Celebrate the day with the powerful voices of Las Colibrí and Shimshon-Santo as they creatively return Manuela Garcia’s story to the heart of downtown Los Angeles.

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