Wed, Dec 03, 2008
 The Viva Arizona dancers, including instructor Unique Haro, center, rehearse a dance routine at the new Viva Performing Arts Center, 4563 S. Park Ave.
Mamta Popat / Arizona Daily Star
CORT WAREHOUSE/DRIVER Education Assessment Technology, Inc Social Studies Content Writer General CORT Warehouse Supervisor Construction Komatsu Equipment Co Mechanic Health Care Rio Salado College PA's/Online Instructors NeighborsUA hosts 2nd Hispanic music-dance conferenceARIZONA DAILY STAR
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 07.26.2007
By Nathan Olivarez-Giles
For the second August in a row, the University of Arizona is hosting the Viva Arizona Hispanic Performing Arts Conference.
Open to participants of all ages and skill levels, the four-day conference will include music and dance workshops in flamenco, salsa, folklorico and hip-hop as well as instruction in mariachi, classical guitar, boleros, marimba and voice. The teachers are local and international artists.
Julie Gallego owns and teaches dance at the Viva Performing Arts Center on the South Side, organizes the conference and works a full-time job as the Tucson Convention Center events coordinator. She is hoping the conference becomes a longstanding tradition in the city — a tradition that started from the need for air conditioning.
"I called my friend Gilbert Velez, who started the mariachi program at the U of A, and told him I wanted to hold some classes for my kids in the Student Union, because at that time the studio we were at had no air conditioning," Gallego said. "He called me back and said, 'I got you all the rooms at the U of A's School of Music for one week.' "
Even though she hadn't intended to host a music-and-dance conference, Gallego knew she had to capitalize on the opportunity to have the entire School of Music building under her control for a week.
With a lot of help from her students, friends and family — many of them South Side residents — the Viva Arizona Hispanic Performing Arts conference was a success, bringing in more than 350 participants as young as 4 and selling out the conference concert, Viva Arizona — 100 Years of Hispanic Musical Memories, held at the UA's Centennial Hall.
"It was awesome," Gallego said. "Walking down the School of Music's halls and hearing the bolero played by Los Hermanos Perez, and I turned the corner and there were our salsa dancers and then another corner and you could hear flamenco. It is so beautiful to hear our music, our culture in this building, in every room."
Viva's goal of making the conference and concert a staple in Tucson is shared by the UA.
"With estimates saying that by 2020 Arizona's population will be 40 percent Hispanic in the state, it really makes sense that we should be doing more with the community that we're in, and the community we are in in Tucson is largely Hispanic," said Peter A. McAllister, director of the UA School of Music.
"The conference and the concert both bring a lot of people to the UA campus that might not have otherwise come here," he said.
For the week of the conference, the UA gives over "essentially the run of the building" to Viva, McAllister said.
Earlier this year Gallego built a new studio — with air conditioning — for Viva Performing Arts, 4563 S. Park Ave., between East Ajo Way and East Irvington Road. The South Side studio has been the home of the Viva dancers training for the conference for the last six months.
"It's been pretty intense," Viva dancer Stephanie Fimbres said of the training.
"We learned a lot from last year, and this year we're going to have a better concert and a better conference, and we know we're going to be doing this for a few more years.."
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● Send story ideas about people or happenings on the South Side to reporter Nathan Olivarez-Giles at nolivarezgiles@azstarnet.com or call 307-0579.
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