Guanajuato, Mexico: The 35th Annual International Cervantino Festival

The largest cultural event in Guanajuato is the International Cervantino Festival. It is held for 3 weeks each October. This is a festival that celebrates the arts. Each year, the festival features one of Mexico's 31 states as well as 1 or 2 foreign countries. Artists, musicians, artisans, and dancers come to Guanajuato to display their skills.

The festival began in the 1950's with university students performing short dramas in Spanish in honor of Miguel de Cervantes y Saavedra, author of Don Quixote. The students performed these dramas in a plaza called, "Plaza de San Roque." The plaza, complete with bleachers and lighting, is still the site of many performances during the festival.

In 1972, the festival became an annual event. Since then, the number of participants and spectators has grown with each passing year. In 2004, our second Cervantino, the city reported that around 2500 artists performed for over 47,000 spectators in over 100 events.

During the festival, the event locations are filled to overflowing. Some events are free, so you need to stake out a seat a couple of hours or so in advance. For other events, you need to buy tickets that cost between 15 and 350 pesos each. Tickets sell out months in advance, so you will probably want to check with Ticketmaster (Mexico) beginning in July of each year. A note of advice here: not only do the tickets sell out early; the hotels also are booked well in advance.

A long-time expatriate told me that when Cervantino began as a regular yearly event it was great. The program was in the hands of private citizens who arranged a quality program with professional acts for the entertainment. Then, my friend told me, the government took over the festival about 11 years ago and that's when it went downhill fast. Rather than forking over the money for quality shows, the government types sought freebies or less-than-professional performers. This also attracted members of Mexico's counterculture, a group that still shows up each October to do street performances and sell handmade items, incense, water bongs, and all manner of counterculture curios on the street. The locals call them hippies.

During our first Cervantino festival, we discovered that hippies are alive and well. They poured into Guanajuato in their freaky, filthy clothes, with their wild hair, and their questionable ethical behavior. They slept in the parks and on the streets, used the streets and sidewalks as bathrooms, smelled as if they had never used a bar of soap, and were outrageously loud. The police made many arrests for improper public behavior.

These counterculture kids do not share the conservative public behavioral ethics the locals uphold. They engage in public drunkenness, rude behavior, fighting, doing and selling drugs, as well as other activities that are against the law. My friend told me that he heard from a Mexican woman who, when she opened her front door that led to a kind of foyer, there was a boy and girl absolutely naked rolling around on the floor acting like a pair of hot rabbits. It is not unusual to have one or more of them banging on your windows in the middle of the night demanding entry into your house to use the bathroom. Even though the police make many arrests during this festival, it seems the same groups of nefarious individuals show up year after year. Some locals leave town during the festival to avoid the craziness that accompanies it. My Spanish teacher's mother and grandmother leave for Guadalajara each year until the party in Guanajuato is over.

Though the festival has fallen out of favor with many of the locals in recent years, with some calling it a celebration of the art of drunkenness instead of a celebration of the fine arts, most of the spectators come to Guanajuato to experience the music, dance, plays, and arts.

Cervantino 35-2007, begins October 3 and lasts until the 21st of the month. This year, it will feature the Mexican state of San Luis Potosi and the guest country will be China.

" Chinese Ambassador to Mexico Yin Hengmin said China's participation in the festival shows the importance the Chinese government attaches to the festival, and the excellent relationship the two nations are in." [source]

China received the invitation to be the festival's feature country this year because it is both the 35th anniversary of the festival becoming an annual event and the 35th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Mexico and China.

The entire schedule can be seen by [clicking here]. Once on the Google site, click on the "translate this page" that is after the entry, " Festival Internacional Cervantino - Sitio Oficial."