All ears inside the Whiteaker Community Center wait for the silence to be broken.  It is a cold Sunday afternoon.  In this room there is no separation between the audience, musicians and dancers. Thirteen people, a colorful mixture of 2 children, 1 teenager, and 10 adults are assembled around raised wooden platforms called tarimas. The instructor starts stamping her feet in a slow rhythm. The rest of the class follows her as the steps become faster and faster until the room is vibrating like a heart being strummed.  After an hour of dancing, they bring out an extraordinary collection of instruments that make high sharp twangs; the upstroke pattern almost mimics the steps of the dance, which provides the percussion. Everyone is singing. Everyone is smiling.

This is the festival known as fandango. The popular dance called son jarocho comes from the region of Southern Veracruz Mexico. This fusion of indigenous, Spanish and African music is being studied and celebrated in Eugene Oregon by The Taller de Son Jarocho a local arts and music collective working to unite Eugene’s diverse communities.  

Janice Carraher, a retired dancer from West L.A. fell in love with Ballet Folklórico, dances that reflect the traditional culture of Mexico. Carraher wanted to find out where the steps she learned on stage came from. She traveled to Mexico, and participated in fandangos. Here she discovered how this tradition had almost disappeared due to social corruption and rural areas receiving electricity. This resulted in people listening to the radio or watching television instead of making their own entertainment. When Carraher moved to Eugene Oregon, she had no one to play music or dance with until she met James Daria, a graduate student in cultural anthropology and fan of son jarocho. Together they started this project in November of last year.

“We wanted to create this space where anyone could feel part of a community” says Daria. “We say convivencia which means living together. We wanted to create convivencia through music and celebrate this piece of Mexican culture.”

Carraher is the main workshop instructor, having learned to dance, sing and play the instruments while living in Veracruz. She learned the steps and music for free and she says she feels obligated to teach the tradition of son jarocho without charging. There are bilingual classes every Sunday from 5:15 – 6:00 p.m. Carraher teaches the jarana, an 8-stringed instrument in the guitar family, and the zapateado, the percussive footwork. Since the space is free, the only thing the project has to pay for is the instruments which are handmade in Veracruz and sent to Eugene.    

“Some of them are made professionally and those are expensive,” says Daria, “but some of them are made by poor people in Veracruz whose only tool is a machete. Can you imagine carving such a delicate instrument with just a machete?”

Each jarana sounds slightly different depending on the quality of the wood. The Taller Son Jarocho gives out some of the less expensive instruments so people can practice at home before everyone joins together on the last Sunday of every month for a fandango.

Carraher and Daria hope that the children who are in workshops now will grow to teach a new generation of the community the aspects of son jarocho. They also hope to someday be able to bring musicians from Veracruz to Eugene and likewise send musicians to Veracruz to learn through ­­this active tradition.

“We also want to create a class within the University” says Daria “This is the first ever fandango jarocho in this area. They have son jarocho in Chicago, in Seattle, and even in the South, but we are trying to spread the seeds here in Oregon.”

As the clock reaches 6:00, the instructor leads the class in one last song. She stands in front, feet pounding on the tarima, and her graceful hands directing the class. Each person gets a chance to sing a solo as everyone keeps strumming their jaranas. The cold air from outside dissolves instantly as it hits the heat of swelling sound. The leader shouts out one last phrase and everyone stops on cue. A ringing silence follows before everyone starts to clap. A woman from Brazil sitting in the back says, “minha alma é lavada” (my soul is washed).