International music swings at Winchester Cultural Center

All the world may be a stage, but the stage at the Winchester Cultural Center is the world.

From globe-spanning musical mashups to Spanish-language theater, the center — operated by Clark County’s Parks & Recreation Department — presents a wide world of performances that reflect Las Vegas’ increasing cultural diversity.

This weekend, the center hosts a recital by ballet folklorico students taking classes there; Las Vegas-based Izel Ballet Folklorico returns for a 10th-anniversary show in April, reflecting the popularity of the Mexican dances.

Other upcoming performances include a mariachi concert featuring Clark County School District students and a “Baile y Movimento” conference and concert exploring Latin-American musical roots.

But Spanish isn’t the only language spoken by the Winchester’s multicultural lineup.

“Bulgarian Rhythm” will bring Gadulka player Angel Gadzhev to the center in May. And repeat performers range from African harpist Toumany Kouyate to Chinese musician Hong Wang to Meshugginah Klezmorim, who specialize in vibrant, jazz-influenced Jewish party music.

A 2014 “Circle the World” concert, for example, teamed Hawaiian slack-key guitarist and singer Gary Haleamau with, among others, Chinese musician Linhong Li and Milwaukee-born bluesman Junior Brantley, notes Patrick Gaffey, the center’s cultural program supervisor.

During Brantley’s bluesy “Juke Joint,” he waved to Li “to take a solo” on the four-stringed pipa, Gaffey says, and “she just tore into it. She was playing the blues, but with all these Oriental overtones.”

Winchester cultural specialist Erika Borges describes it as “the most amazing sound you’ve ever heard.”

Similarly, a recent “String Thing” concert teamed Senegal native Kouyate (who’s played with Cirque du Soleil’s “O” since 1998) with Paraguayan harpist Mariano Gonzalez (who tours with Tony Orlando) and Wang, who plays more than 20 string and wind instruments.

Although the three musicians had limited rehearsal time, they sounded as though they had “played together for a long time,” says Gonzalez, who lauded the talents of his collaborators.

A frequent Winchester performer, Gonzalez also joined pan pipe flutist Flavio Martinez for a February concert featuring music of the Americas.

“I thank Winchester for giving me so much opportunity,” Gonzalez says in a telephone interview from Orlando’s current Florida tour. With “contemporary” music dominating so many venues, “there’s very little space for traditional music.”

At Winchester, however, “the audience is amazing,” he says. “Always, always. Those people really like art” — and “different types of musicians.”

Las Vegas’ contingent of international musicians launched Winchester as a multicultural venue more than a decade ago, Gaffey says, when “we realized we could actually do a world music series using mostly people who live here.”

Because “they’re here to perform in all the Strip hotels,” he adds, “they end up living here. They’re extraordinarily talented” and “welcome the chance to do something different.”

The wide range of performers also means the Winchester center is “developing an audience that wants to see” such variety, according to Gaffey.

“We take pride that we are one of the only places that really gives the community a place where they can really come and see culture,” says Borges, who notes that Winchester hopes to add programs to appeal to newer communities, such as the area’s growing Ethiopian population.

The biggest community Winchester serves, however, is Latino.

“One of the beautiful things about the Winchester Cultural Center,” says David Olmeca, who teaches at UNLV’s Latin American studies department, is “they actually represent the demographics of the community they’re serving. It’s definitely one of those safe havens to express and explore” culture.

Olmeca is experiencing that firsthand as helps to organize May’s “Baile y Movimento” conference and concert, which features the Los Angeles group Buyepongo — in a different context than a club or bar.

At Winchester center, their performance becomes more than “entertainment — it’s education through art,” Olmeca says in a telephone interview from Texas’ South by Southwest festival, where he was performing with his musical project, one that mixes hip-hop and Latin American roots music.

Director Stacy Mendoza also has found a home at Winchester with annual productions of “Monologos de la Vagina” (the Spanish-language version of Eve Ensler’s “The Vagina Monologues”) and the works of Mexican playwright Humberto Robles.

Robles contacted Mendoza after seeing a video of one of her productions and offered her a bargain price to stage all of his plays.

And representatives from the V-Day group that licenses “Vagina Monologues” in 270 countries invited Mendoza to present her production in New York following the Winchester production earlier this month.

“Usually, they just read the script but I present it as a play,” she says. “It is very exciting,” Mendoza says of the New York invitation, “but it makes me nervous as well.”

That’s definitely not the case at Winchester, Mendoza says.

“They speak my language,” she comments, noting the welcome Winchester officials extend to various multicultural communities. “When you see your people, you feel like you’re home.”

Read more stories from Carol Cling at reviewjournal.com. Contact her at ccling@reviewjournal.com and follow @CarolSCling on Twitter.