Professor of English Rubén Martínez is an Emmy® award-winning journalist, author and musician, all of which come together in his passion project “VARIEDADES on Olvera Street.” This interdisciplinary live performance piece uses music, spoken word, theater, comedy and the visual arts to reveal the history behind the birthplace of Los Angeles and will air on KCET’s award-winning arts and culture series ARTBOUND. “VARIEDADES” employs a type of storytelling that is part-history lesson and part-immersion in stereotype, and is loosely based on the Mexican vaudeville shows of early 20th century Los Angeles. Over the course of an hour, viewers become engaged in the fraught — and oftentimes violent — 200-year struggle for political and symbolic control of Los Angeles.
ARTBOUND’s “VARIEDADES on Olvera Street” episode will air Tues., Mar. 27 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on KCET, the nation’s largest independent public television station, and Link TV nationwide (DirecTV 375 and DISH Network 9410). The episode encores May 29 and will also be streaming online following the Mar. 27 broadcast at kcet.org/artbound and linktv.org/artbound as well as on Amazon, YouTube, Roku and Apple TV.
KCETLink Media Group, a leading national independent nonprofit public broadcast and digital network produces ARTBOUND, a series that examines the lives, works and creative processes of arts and culture innovators making an impact in Southern California and beyond.
