March 18th & 19th, 2023
About the 2023 Festival:
Since its inception in 2014, the effort of this meeting made by and for the community is to captivate visitors to this beautiful fishing port during three days of free presentations by regional artists who captivate us through music, art and culture.
The Chacala Music and Arts Festival reaches its 10th edition this 2023 and will be held in the plaza facing the sea, at the north end of the main street on Saturday, March 18 and Sunday, March 19, during the long weekend of Benito Juarez.
Programming begins at 5:00 pm and the concerts and performances are free for the whole family to enjoy thanks to local sponsors and volunteers. It will be two full days of art, music and culture for everyone.
Admission is free in the town square. As part of the Festival's mission, activities begin with school presentations. Going on stage is empowering and educational for children and what better place to do it than at a festive and inclusive event for the entire community. The community leaders of tomorrow grow together in this exciting project.
Likewise, we will enjoy the live participation of regional artists about to be announced and the unmissable exhibitions and art workshops in the gallery of the Casa Canarias Cultural Center.
This March 18 and 19, see you in Chacala! 🌴
About our festival
Chacala has hosted a free Music & Arts Festival run by the community every year in March since 2014. It features children's performance, local visual artists and printmakers, bands, solo acts, dance groups & even theatrical performances. The line up is varied and the festival is designed to be inclusive to different nationalities, ages & backgrounds. Why not arrange your trip to Chacala during the Festival dates? It takes place during the Benito Juarez holiday weekend around the middle of March.
We are a team of community volunteers from different countries, professions & backgrounds. What we have in common is a love for the arts, a faith in their power to enable positive change & a passion for this small, traditional community on the Riviera Nayarit. Here is our mission for Festival Chacala:
Performance:
To provide an annual celebration & a year-round calendar of wide ranging arts performances & events for neighbors of & visitors to Chacala and position our community as a traditional Mexican beach town with high quality artistic values & a rich cultural life.
In 2014, our March Festival was mainly musical performance & has expanded to include dance, kids workshops, art exhibition. This year we will incorporate literature & theater.
Education:
Supplement existing arts education for the youth in the community with additional education and performance opportunities to stimulate, develop and nurture talent in the community.
Building on existing programs such as El Jardín Montessori Waldorf School & the Cambiando Vidas scholarship program, our intention is for the arts to bridge cultural gaps & provide local children a window to a world of possibilities for the future & give them a place to express themselves.
A major tenet of the Chacala Music & Art Festival is to provide music and art education opportunities to all the children in the community. In addition, locals and visitors alike delight in being able to expose their families to professional, high-quality performances at the free, 4-day festival. To that end, in the first two years, the festival has benefitted local children in the following ways:
1. Provided 50+ local children weekly music education, rehearsal, and performance experience.
2. Exposed 100+ of our youngest children to music through the KinderMusik program. In addition to the local kindergarten children, this program piggy-backs on a “bookmobile” program sponsored by Rotary that involves Jannel Tessari, so the program travels to several remote villages near Chacala, benefitting an additional 100 children.
3. Provided local high school students instruction in instrumental rehearsal and performance. Additionally, visiting musicians who perform in the Festival usually spend time with the students sharing their music, performing, etc.
4. Exposed local children to visual arts through exhibition and hands-on instruction. The visual art component of the Festival was initiated in 2015, which was principally exhibition. It has included teaching by qualified art teachers during and after the two-week Chacala Artists Residency Program, and there are more programs being developed this year.
Arturo Padilla
Chairman, Music & Art Festival
Ten Years of Culture
Thanks to our sponsors for making it possible and thanks to the community for your support.
