Female Mariachi Band Breaks the Sound Barrier

A y, caramba! Another male bastion falls, and this time the fanfare is sounded by trumpets and guitarra golpa.

“It’s a very anti-traditional idea,” admitted Alma Rocio Corona, founder of Las Perlitas Tapatias, the first all-female mariachi band. “We began in the cradle of mariachi, inGuadalajara. Now maybe it’s the cradle for a new kind of mariachi.”

Las Perlitas Tapatias will appear at a mariachi festival tonight at the Anaheim Arena. Also on the bill are Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlan, Mariachi Sol de Mexico de Jose Hernandez, Mariachi Nochistlan and Ballet Folklorico de San Juan. The festival includes a tribute to Walt Disney.

Las Perlitas was formed in 1989 following open auditions; the 13 members range in age from 17 to 26, and all hail from the Jalisco region of Mexico. Corona plays vihuela , a small guitar; other instruments include the guitarra golpa (the five-string guitar, one of the earliest mariachi instruments), the six-string guitarra sexta and the oversized guitarron, a harp, three trumpets and six violins.

According to Corona, who spoke through an interpreter during a recent phone interview, Las Perlitas has encountered surprisingly few obstacles.

“At the beginning, people would say we were a passing fad, that we would never stay together,” Corona recalled. “But now our popularity has grown, now we’re together for four years. Also at the beginning there were jealousies, but they were not sexist jealousies. And now there’s no problem with the other groups.”

*

The band began touring within a year of its founding. Performances included a Latin America summit in Mexico before heads of state, including King of Spain Juan Carlos I de Borbon, Cuba’s Fidel Castro and the presidents of Mexico, Venezuela and Argentina.

Its U.S. debut came in 1991, and Las Perlitas has performed consistently at festivals here since. In March, the women were presented the keys to Fresno, and they recently completed production on their first recording.

One problem the group has run into is that the words to virtually all mariachi songs are written from a male perspective, sung by a man to, or about, a woman. The solution in each case has meant a judgment call.

“We change (the lyrics) as little as possible,” Corona said. “We try to respect the authors, and our peers, as much as we can. If the words obviously don’t work, sometimes we change it. But especially if the songs are written a long time ago, we won’t.”

Another recurring, though hardly serious, problem stems from stereotyping. According to Corona, emcees introducing the various mariachi groups at shows in Mexico often look at the roster and get confused when they see the feminine nouns.

“They think it’s a typo,” she said. ‘They don’t know what to do.’ ” Instead of being introduced as a female mariachi band, “usually they just end up saying something like, ‘And now, here come--the mariachis!’ ”

* Las Perlitas Tapatias join Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlan, Mariachi Sol de Mexico de Jose Hernandez, Mariachi Nochistlan and Ballet Folklorico de San Juan for a Mariachi Fest tonight at 7 p.m., at the Anaheim Arena, 2695 E. Katella Ave., $15 to $50. (714) 740-2000.