Mariposas Galácticas honors its ancestors with music for community empowerment

For most bands, one year is not nearly enough time to get to know each other, gain a following, and play sold-out shows. But Mariposas Galácticas, an eight-piece Philly-based band playing a mix of kumbia, klezmer, and punk, is not like most bands.

The octet came together in April 2023 and was dreamed up by lead singer and rhythm guitarist María Paz Ordoñez and clarinetist and singer Ariel Goodman. The two met at an activist meeting in Peru, during their fight to protect the Yasuní National Park in Ecuador 10 years ago.

“We manifested the band,” Ordoñez said.

Ordoñez dreamed of being able to play music in order to represent women, and to be able to break away from the status quo of women in her family only playing music to entertain family members, while men had opportunities to perform on stage.

“We met as activists, so when we play music together, we also play music for the environment, music for the planet, for saving water … and we are feminists,” said Ordoñez, who is Indigenous South American and belongs to the Cañari peoples.

First, Ordoñez taught Goodman kumbia.

The origins of the music the band plays is Cumbia, music that is sung in Spanish and comes from a mixture of African and indigenous cultures from northern Colombia that has spread throughout the Americas. The band’s choice to spell kumbia with the letter ‘K’ is an homage to the Kichwa language, which is part of their multicultural ancestry.

Goodman, who is Jewish, brought klezmer into the mix. Klezmer, as defined by Goodman, is the traditional music of the Ashkenazi Jewish diaspora, often sung in Yiddish. “It’s a reclaiming of a cultural heritage that was lost to some of our families as a result of the Holocaust and assimilation,” she said.

The two remained friends after their time in Peru, and they played music together on the New York subway’s 7 Train. And while playing music as a duo was fun, the two knew they wanted to have a larger band to play with at their combined birthday party. So, they started reaching out to musicians they knew and had heard of.

“We manifested the band.”

Being based in Philly, Goodman knew of Galapagos, who is also Indigenous and whose family is from Ecuador, through his previous band QLEBRAS and his work as founder of the Pharmacy, a Pan-American cultural alliance.

“They slid into my DMs,” Galapagos jokes, reminiscing about how much his life has changed since meeting the two. “I told them to meet me at the skate park one day … I invited my buddy Daniel [Acevedo Alfaro] who [now] plays bass in the band and is Peruvian. He wanted to play similar stuff and get into ancestral music.”

Things solidified once the group realized that, without Acevedo Alfaro even knowing it, Ordoñez had already asked his brother, Pelai, to join the band as a drummer. From there, Galapagos said, things started to snowball.

The band is made up of:

It’s not lost on the band that eight people in a musical act can be a lot to manage, especially considering that two of the members commute to Philadelphia from New York for rehearsals and shows. So what keeps things running smoothly and helps to unite the band?

“Our common point was that we are activists and we fight out in the streets and in our own homes,” Ordoñez said. “We believe in community. Our band doesn’t have hierarchy. We are a collective. No one is above someone else.”

“We have people [in the band] who represent minorities, we represent the queer and LGBT community, there’s also vegans in the band, there’s a person that is [a] communist. There’s lots of different viewpoints in the band,” she said.

In fact, the band’s conguero, Martínez Abadía, who emigrated from Colombia, was excited to find himself playing Indigenous music in the United States.

“He knows what those crazy kumbia parties are like in Colombia, but then he comes here and is like, ‘Oh wow, we’re introducing that to the Americans,’” Galapagos said. “It’s really cool to think that if he didn’t have that connection with the band, he may not have had that experience in America.”

“We believe in community. Our band doesn’t have hierarchy.”

Galapagos said he finds that identity also plays a big role in what brings them all together.

“I think [identity] is an important part of the equation with the story of the Mariposas, especially since there are a lot of us from all different parts of South America who share this same experience with how to identify across the Americas,” he said.

“There is this idea of ‘ni de aqui, ni de allá,’ or ‘neither here nor there,’ which means when I’m here, people call us Mexican or Latino. [And] when I go to Ecuador they call me gringo.”

» READ MORE: Philly’s Latino population is the city’s fastest-growing demographic

And Mariposas Galácticas is a band rich with different backgrounds and experiences. The band’s live shows include classic kumbia sounds that are mixed into a performance of the celebratory Jewish folk song “Hava Nagila,” which usually leads to the audience joyfully dancing in whichever style feels right.

What klezmer shares with kumbia, Galapagos says, is that they were both considered “lower class” types of music and dancing, and were sometimes frowned upon because of their sociopolitical content and encouragement of resistance. What they share, he said, is the idea of radical joy, or joy as an act of resistance. Of course, the same themes can be seen in the punk-rock genre.

“I think [identity] is an important part of the equation with the story of the Mariposas.”

Goodman admires these musical styles, and reminds herself often to continue to remain humble while playing them. “[These] musical styles have roots in communities that have survived slavery, that have survived genocide,” she said. “And so we approach them with humility, hoping that we can play them and honor that legacy.”

Mariposas Galácticas takes pride in creating spaces that are intended to build and strengthen communities. In 2024 alone, they played a backyard show on Cedar Avenue, two sets at West Philly’s annual Porchfest, and put together Latin Punk Fest at Cantina la Martina in Kensington.

» READ MORE: Music soothes in West Philly, where PorchFest music party offers ‘first fun day in a year’

“I really believe in creating these spaces of culture and party and celebration, because if I meet my neighbor at a party and share this spiritual experience tonight, I can also wake up and fight for them tomorrow,” Goodman said. “This band would not exist without a beautiful community around it. We’re grassroots in every sense … We all have a real DIY and rebel punk spirit.”

Ordoñez said music is a direct channel to the heart, and Goodman agreed. Music, she said, is a place of creativity and joy, of sadness and grief. “There’s very few spaces that hold all of that,” she said.

“We all have a real DIY and rebel punk spirit.”

Galapagos finds that their messages of community, resistance, and mixed culture are truly ingrained in the music they make. That, in itself, invites the audience to feel like they could be the ninth member of the band. It becomes a space for all, not just for some.

“I think the audience really has that connection because they can feel us feeding off of their energy and then we give them more energy … it’s almost like hypnotism,” he said.

And while the band members give back to their communities by creating these empowering spaces to feel “rebellious joy,” they are also deeply fulfilled by being in community and by making music together.

“The band keeps my spirit alive,” Goodman said. “We’re living in difficult times. On a deep level, the band is a family … [It’s] a refuge for our spirits.”

Keep an eye on the band’s Instagram page for information about upcoming shows.