Becoming Tia Chucha's

Like the co-founder's aunt's rumpled bag, the center is full of prizes

BY LINDA CHIAVAROLI

On August 1 a group of powerhouse women will come together to perform at the Ford: Grammy-nominated singer-composer Perla Batalla, National Book Award finalist and poet Wanda Coleman, smoky-voiced vocalist Ceci Bastida and no-holds-barred performance artist Kristina Wong. It’s the fourth annual benefit for Tia Chucha’s and will be as eclectic and vital as the Chicano arts and cultural center itself.

Started in 2001 by Luis and Trini Rodríguez — activists for community, youth, the arts and inner-core transformative work — the center is named for Luis’ aunt. As the widely-acclaimed writer recounts in the “Tia Chucha” poem,"Every few years Tia Chucha would visit the family in a tornado of song and open us up as if we were an overripe avocado. She was a dumpy, black-haired creature of upheaval who often came unannounced with a bag of presents..."

Luis wasn’t always a writer. The former gang member, drug addict and alcoholic turned his life around, and Tia Chucha’s has given others a chance to do the same thing. The Sylmar-based center is a hive of activity embracing movie and poetry nights, open mics, lectures, free workshops and classes in Spanish and Aztec dance and an Azteca group that performs different ceremonies. The center houses a bookstore in addition to an art gallery and performance space and publishes poets from across the country under the Tia Chucha imprint. Its annual Celebrating Words Festival is the only literacy-focused outdoor festival in the Southern California region.

The center, like its namesake, is “uncontainable as a splash of water
on a varnished table,” as Luis writes in the ”Tia Chucha” poem. “ I wanted to be one of the prizes she stuffed into her rumpled bag.”

Linda Chiavaroli, Director of Communications for the Los Angeles County Arts Commission/Ford Theatres, has worked in marketing and pr for dance companies, orchestras, individual artists and arts centers, and as a journalist covering the performing arts.

For more information about this specific event, click here.

Tia Chucha's benefit is one of five events in the Ford's Inventive Voices Series.

Click here to read more featured stories in our MEET THE ARTMAKERS series.