Las Cafeteras’ Hasta La Muerte – Coming To Miner Auditorium

East L.A.’s Las Cafeteras are bringing their Hasta La Muerte production to Miner Auditorium on Halloween night, blending son jarocho, hip‑hop, dance, and poetry. Bandleader Hector Flores describes why the story belongs on stage in San Francisco, creating a shared altar—part ritual, part party. (Click play to listen to the interview.)

“We actually met as a group of activists and friends,” Flores says. “I was an organizer, and Denise Carlos (vocalist) was an organizer in East L.A. We were fighting for student rights, immigrant rights, and gender justice. We came together to learn a folk style from Veracruz as a way to play protest. Over time, from student activists and a collective, we started becoming a band without even knowing it.”

That origin guides the project’s direction. The group sees music as a way to build community. The stage encourages participation and highlights history in the present tense.

“LA let us refuse the box,” Flores says. “I grew up with hip‑hop and cumbia. The artists I listened to—Tupac, Warren G—were wordsmiths and storytellers. A lot of our songs begin as poems I write about lived experience. As Mexican folks, we’re mixed people. We don’t come from one place. It makes sense that our music doesn’t either.”

The spark for this production came from a surprise. Flores went to see Disney’s Coco expecting to dislike it and left moved. The film raised a practical question—who gets to write stories about Mexican culture—then pushed him to bring it to the stage.

“Walking out of that film, I thought, ‘Why is Disney writing songs and stories about my culture and I am not?’” he says. “That night I stayed up and wrote a song about a love that exists even in death—‘I’ll love you even in the afterlife.’ That song became the seed for a larger production with five dancers, four musicians, visuals, stories, and poems.”

Courtesey photo provided

Hasta La Muerte uses the familiar to create a doorway to the afterlife. Traditional figures appear, but the scripts change. Las Cafeteras reimagine icons to reveal both power and mercy. “We use characters people know,” Flores says. “La Catrina becomes La Santa de los Muertos, a figure who appears every Day of the Dead. She finds spirits who haven’t reached the afterlife and helps them get there. She also visits the living to tell us our dead are okay.”

One vignette reimagines La Llorona. “We tell the story as if La Llorona didn’t commit the crime she’s blamed for,” Flores says. “At the end, La Santa says, ‘I know you didn’t do this, and I’m ready to take you home.’ Who do you think wrote a story about a woman killing her children? Probably a man. And who makes laws policing women’s bodies today? Men. The layers are there. If you know, you know.”

The music conveys that message gracefully. A master guitarist moves across the stage with a Leona bass, a requinto, and a jarana—all instruments he crafts himself. Afro-Colombian percussion blends with Indigenous drums. Electronics weave into the wood and skin, allowing the production to flow seamlessly from past to present without losing its rhythm.

“We love mixing the folk with the modern,” Flores says. “Our musical director from Mexico City helped shape a soundscape that’s tied to our past and tuned to the future. People will hear how we’re taking folk music to the future.”

Participation matters. The company considers the auditorium like a plaza. The invitation is clear: “Yes—come in costume,” Flores says. “It’s Halloween, but it’s also a teaser for Día de los Muertos. Paint your face, wear the hats, bring marigolds. At every stop on the tour, people show up dressed and ready. Bay Area, come on now!”

Collectors should visit the merch table early. A limited vinyl pressing—signed by cast and crew—travels with the tour. Many of the tracks currently only exist on that disc.

The night looks ahead. “We’re already planning a tour of the East Coast and Midwest next year,” Flores says. “And we’re taking this production beyond the West. Follow along—we’re just getting started.”

“Dress up. Sing along,” says Flores. “Witness a story that insists our dead travel with us—and that music can carry them.”

Las Cafeteras bring this act of remembrance to Miner Auditorium on October 31 at 7:30 p.m.

Tickets available here: https://www.sfjazz.org/tickets/productions/25-26/las-cafeteras-hasta-la-muerte/