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| Entertainment | Kalamazoo Gazette, Thursday, May 2, 1996 |
| Storytellers celebrate Cinco de Mayo | |
| by Mark Wedel, Special to the Gazette Irene S. Vasquez and Daniel Runyan of The Magical Rain Theaterworks will celebrate Cinco de Mayo at John Rollins Books this Sunday with tales of tricksters, jests, wisdom and wit. Cinco de Mayo (the Fifth of May) is Mexico's Fourth of July. It dates back to 1862 when soldiers turned back French invaders, the last attempt of the Old World to conquer the New. The holiday is "a good old fiesta time, a high spirited party time," Vasquez said. "Basically, when you find out what it's all about it's kind of strange that there's all this hoopla for a battle fought in Mexico a century ago." The battle was a victory of the small over the large, a major theme of the stories that Vasquez and Runyan will be telling. "I want to focus on being able to confront and overcome obstacles," she said. "There is in Mexican culture in general an affection for winning through cunning, through tricksters. Kids at the age we're directing this toward are just learning the power of being mischievous, so this will appeal to them very well." Though Vasquez and Runyan have told these stories to adults, this event is aimed at children aged 4 through 9, with the hope of attracting children to literature. "They'll see that it's a textured thing," she said. "When you animate it by telling stories, they see that it has more dimension to it. What I'm trying to do is focus on folk tales and home tales - more of the celebratory type so that they aren't a bunch of military stories, more about the character and quality of Latino people. It's a happy to be alive kind of a thing." The hour of stories starts at 6:30 p.m. at John Rollins Books, 6414 S. Westnedge in the Galleria plaza. |
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