Spanish festivals, museums in northern New Mexico

Sunset, Sept, 1988

Other areas may be winding down their summer festivities and settling into some more serious autumn business. But now through early October, northern New Mexico still looks forward to four Spanish folk-life festivals, including one of the country's oldest celebrations.

Here's what's planned, with a guide to

museum exhibits that highlight Spain's two centuries of colonial rule in New Mexico. (See also the feature story beginning on page 62.) All telephone numbers are area code 505.

Albuquerque: August 27 and 28. Fiesta Artistica gives visitors a chance to meet more than a hundred performing artists and craftsmen from Hispanic New Mexico. It opens with a parade at 10 Saturday starting from Civic Plaza.

Also at Civic Plaza, food booths offer everything from posole (a stew with hominy in it) to blue corn tamales. Folk musicians, singers, and dancers perform on outdoor stages noon to 10 Saturday, noon to 7 Sunday. The shows are free. Next door at the convention center, juried arts and crafts-both contemporary and traditional-are for sale. Ninety artists entered last year. Santeros (makers of wooden saints) and other woodcarvers, weavers, embroiderers, tinsmiths, straw inlay artists, wreath makers, and even saddlery makers will participate. The honored artist is Luisito Lujan, a santero from Nambe.

You can also see documentaries on Hispanic life and history, and meet authors of books on Hispanic subjects. Hours are 10 to 8 Saturday, 10 to 5 Sunday; $1 ages 13 and over.

On Friday, before the main fiesta, folk violinist Cleofes Ortiz and Orquestra Tipica revive traditional music from New Mexico's Spanish villages; 8 Pm. at the KiMo Theater, 423 Central Avenue N.W.; $4. For more information, call the fiesta's coordinator, Bernadette Rodriguez LeFebre, at 768-3490.

Santa Fe: September 9, 10, and 11. According to legend, Fiesta de Santa Fe was born when Diego de Vargas made a vow to La Conquistadora, a statue of the Virgin (the original one is still carried in many fiesta events). If she would let him resettle Santa Fe peacefully following the Pueblo Indian revolt of 1680, he promised to celebrate her name every year.

Twelve years later, he and 200 soldiers returned to Santa Fe. In 1712, a proclamation signed after Vargas' death made the celebration official, and New Mexico's capital city has honored that vow most years since.

Presiding over the fiesta are men dressed in 17th-century style, and the fiesta queen and princesses in Spanish-flavored finery. These winners of an annual competition must be bilingual and native-born.

For a complete schedule (related events started in July), write to the Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce, Box 1928, Santa Fe 87504. Most action centers around the Plaza; hours are 9 A.M. to about 10 PM. Friday and Saturday, till 6 on Sunday.

At 6:25 A.M. on Friday, Mass honoring Diego de Vargas begins at Rosario Chapel the spot where he camped before entering Santa Fe. From 6 Pm. to dusk, the burning of Zozobra-a 40-foot-tall straw puppet representing gloom lights up the sky. This 1930s fiesta addition, held at Old Fort Marcy Park, attracts huge crowds and includes lots of fireworks.

Saturday, a children's parade starts at 10 in the Plaza. At 4 there, a historical pageant depicts the day in 1692 when Vargas reclaimed Santa Fe.

Sunday at 9:30 A.M., the costumed Vargas and friends proceed to St. Francis Cathedral for Mass at 10. At 2, the Historical Hysterical parade begins (and later ends(at De Vargas Mall, passing the Plaza en route. Included are Vargas and his men on horseback, and lots of local political satire. At 7 am., a Mass of Thanksgiving begins at the cathedral, followed by everyone joining in a 1/2-mile candlelight procession to the Cross of Martyrs, commemorating 19 Spanish priests killed during the Pueblo Indian revolt of 1680.

Taos. October 1 and 2. The Third Annual Old Taos Trade Fair re-creates an 1820s gathering. Indians, Spanish settlers, and mountain men meet at Martinez Hacienda museum to recapture the spirit and style of Taos' original fairs. It includes crafts demonstrations, native foods, and entertainment; 9 to 5 both days; $2.50 adults, $1.50 ages 5 to 15, $2 seniors.

La Cienega: October 8 and 9. Some hundred volunteers in period dress will come to Las Golondrinas, a 200-acre 18thcentury Spanish village 10 miles south of Santa Fe, for Harvest Festival.

In this privately owned museum Spanish New Mexico's answer to Williamsburgparticipants will harvest corn and beans in the old way, cut up apples to dry for winter, play songs on guitars and violins, and perform a matachines dance (an ancient masked Moorish pageant of good versus evil; see photograph at lower left on page 62). Hours are 9 to 4 both days.

If you can't come for Harvest Festival or for the equally lively Spring Festival in June, visit summer's final open house, from 10 to 4 on September 4. Or, through October 31, you can join guided school tours almost every weekday; call 471-2261,

Museums offer background detail