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Cervantino Festival 2008
Since it's inception more than thirty years ago, the Cervantino Festival has become Mexico's most premier celebration of the arts - nationally and internationally.
Traditionally held over the month of October, the festival began as a presentation of Miguel Cervantes "entremeses" (farces) by a group of students from the University of Guanajuato. Gradually, the event caught the attention of the local government which catapulted it into the national arena where it finally grew into an internationally renowned festival of the arts.
Each year the festival will invite a country and a Mexican state to participate as the festival's principal source of artistic inspiration. This year's guest of honor country will be the autonomous community of Catalonia and the State of Campeche.
Sergio Vela, who is the director of the National Commission for Arts and Culture (CNCA) - one of the main sponsors of the Cervantino Festival - divulged that this year there will be " ... more than 2,000 artists taking part in the festival from 24 different countries coming from Asia, Europe and North America."
Apart from the long list of invited acts, the festival attracts an immense number of tourists both locally and internationally and the city of Guanajuato's hotels and lodgings are fully-booked months in advance.
In recent years, the festival has drawn criticism for becoming a popular holiday spot for young Mexican teenagers with the events becoming overshadowed by all day street partying. Last year, the local government outlawed the consumption of alcohol in public spaces and the authorities clamped down hard on people who broke the law. This has restored the festival's original agenda of celebrating the arts and it has led to a decline in the hordes of teenagers who had been engulfing Guanajuato in recent years.
For their contribution to the arts, this year the festival will honor the french philosopher Simone de Beauvoir, Jorge Ibargüengoitia, Guanajuato artist Francisco Patlán and Nobel Laureate Octavio Paz, among other artists of reputable note.
The 2008 festival runs between Oct.4-23 and will receive 1,672 national artists as well 705 artists from around the world.
Guanajuato is the state capital of the same name and is a World Heritage site along with its adjacent mines.
For more information about this year's Cervantino Festival go to www.festivalcervantino.gob.mx
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