Artemio Posadas participated in ACTA's Apprenticeship Program in 1999 to teach Mexican Huastecan music. He returns this year with a new apprentice, Delores Garcia, who will learn Son Jarocho music from Veracruz, Mexico, specifically the Veracruz harp. Son Jarocho music from Veracruz is influenced by Spanish, African, and indigenous music styles. The music is known for its spontaneity, witty lyrics, and zapateado (vigorous heel dancing).
Posadas believes that to be a sonero, or player of traditional Mexican music, one must know how to sing, to play many instruments, to dance the traditional footwork, and to write and improvise verse. A master sonero himself, Posadas regularly teaches these skills to over 250 students at the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts in Richmond, the Center for Training & Careers in San Jose, and thirteen public schools in the East Bay. Delores Garcia is his most advanced student. In her ten years of study with Posadas she has learned to play the violin, the jarana Jarocho (a thin guitar derived from the Spanish Baroque era and played in Veracruz), the Huapangera (a bass guitar played in the Huastecan region of Mexico), and the jarana Huasteca (a small five stringed guitar with a deep body played in Huastecan music). She has also learned to sing, dance, play percussion instruments of the region and write decimas (poetry) for the sones (melodies rooted in the folk traditions of Mexico). After this intense period of study on the Veracruz harp she will be able to play all of the instruments of Son Jarocho music and she will begin to teach students of her own.
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