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Claudia Norman

Claudia is a multilingual award-winning arts producer, consultant, artist and event manager based in New York City with 25 years experience developing, producing, and executing international performing arts projects in the USA and Latin America. Raised and educated in Mexico City with a B.A. in Latin American Studies from Universidad Autónoma de México, Claudia also has a certificate in Arts Administration from NYU. She is the executive producer and founder of the annual Celebrate Mexico Now Festival and curator and producer of La Casita at Lincoln Center Out of Doors. She has produced concerts for Yo-Yo Ma in Mexico City and the Chavela Vargas Farewell Concert at Carnegie Hall. She is co-producer and co-curator of the CDMX Festival and Rebel Spirit series at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. Claudia specializes in online, streamed and live content curation in many areas of the performing arts including dance, music, spoken word, visual arts and film. She has deep knowledge of community outreach, marketing, social media, fundraising and sponsorship development, especially in Spanish speaking markets, both in the USA and internationally.

“I noticed that it was a lack of presence

from Mexican contemporary work”

Tell me a bit about yourself and how to came to found Celebrate Mexico Now
I was born and raised in Mexico City and moved to NY where I have worked as a cultural producer for more than 20 years. 18 years ago, while developing a project for Arts International (NY re-granting organization) I realized that it was a big lap on the programming in most of the cultural organizations presenting international work. I noticed that it was a lack of presence from Mexican contemporary work. For example, around that time, there was a generation of theater directors, choreographers, visual artists, filmmakers, chefs, who were creating work and showing it at international level, and that work was not present in New York, the so-called, the cultural capital of the world. And at the same time, the flux of Mexican inmigration in NY was booming. Something interesting about that flux of Mexican immigrants in NY was a strong presence of immigrant artists, intellectuals at universities, Mexican restaurants, etc. So the Mexican culture was present in NY, but it was invisible. It was then, that I decided to do something about it, and I found the Mexico Now Festival but I thought that in order to make it happen, I need it to talk directly to the curators in charge of the programming and create a partnership, where the Mexico Now festival will help curators to connect with artists, and share the information I received all the time with very interesting and innovating ideas. To present this idea of a partnership, I decided to organize a meeting with around 60 cultural organizations in the city and ask 3 questions:

1) When was last time they have presented a Mexican contemporary artist

2) If they were inform/aware of the work of Mexican contemporary artists

3) If they will be willing to be part of the Mexico Now Festival

It’s from those roots that the Festival began in earnest.

“the Mexican culture was present in NY,

but it was invisible”

What are the aims for Celebrate Mexico now?

On one hand, the festival aims to be a platform for independent Mexican artists to showcase their work in New York in performing and visual arts, filmmakers, architects, cuisine, etc; and on another, be a cultural partner with the cultural organizations that are looking to reach out and expand their international programming and reach to new audiences. So, the Celebrate Mexico Now Festival aims to be that point of encounter, bridge, that cultural matchmaking between artists, cultural organizations and audiences. Over the past 20 years as a New Yorker, I’ve aimed to be a cultural translator. I take great pleasure in exploring the reasons why and how some artistic tendencies are developed in Latin America, how to find their equivalences in American culture and then presenting a program showcasing my findings. New York gives me access to the full scope of cultural institutions, but my connections with Latin America offer perspective and depth.

Compared with other immigrant communities, the Mexican community in NYC is relatively new and very diverse. You can see a real representation of Mexican society’s complexity here: On the one hand, you have one of the richest men in the world as The New York Times’s largest shareholder. There’s also a growing middle class of small-business owners, a very active artistic community, an intellectual Mexican elite, and an entire second generation of DACA recipients who face a very difficult situation because of their immigration status. At the same time, most of the service industries and restaurants in New York survive because of the often less-than-minimum wage paid to Mexican workers doing menial labor. This sort of economic and educational diversity makes it very difficult to find one voice that represents all Mexicans.

“I’ve aimed to be a cultural translator”

What can we expect from this year’s festival?

For This year’s festival, we think it is very important to amplify once again the voice of the independent artists, indigenous filmmakers, scholars and lgbt communities. So audiences can expect this year to learn about resilience with 3 different approaches :

1) The effects of COVID in the performing arts scene in Mexico, on how, without any kind of financial government support, the performing arts communities organized in order to move forward and artists found a way to keep creating and work as a community.

2) Audiences would also watch films created by indigenous female filmmakers, and listen to the most prominent indigenous linguists and scholars today, to reflect about topics on feminism, traditions, indigenous cultures and languages that have survived 500 years of colonialism.

3) Through original songs, and in a live concert listen the voice of the LGBT communities.

“Audiences can expect this year

to learn about resilience”

What are you most looking forward to with the festival?
I am very excited about our live/in person concert event with singer/songwriter and LGBT advocate, Renee Goust, but also the online programming allows us again this year, to have the most prominent female indigenous voices like Yasnaya Aguilar who will be live from Oaxaca talking about the the role of indigenous women in the history of Mexico. I take great pleasure in exploring the reasons why and how some artistic tendencies are developed in Latin America, how to find their equivalences in American culture and then presenting a program showcasing my findings. New York gives me access to the full scope of cultural institutions, but my connections with Latin America offer perspective and depth.

https://mexiconowfestival.org