Social justice is a guiding principle for Durango singer Sara Illsley, and now she wants to incorporate it into her shows by making each performance a benefit.

“I grew up in a family that had that principle,” she said. “My grandmother was Quaker, and for my parents, it’s something more than trying to achieve success and money; they wanted us to be good human beings.”

Illsley was born and raised in Uruapan, Michoacan, Mexico. She became a professional singer at age 21, touring through Mexico and Cuba. When she was 25, Illsley went to school in Mexico City to study music.

Then her sister, Linda Illsley, who owned the restaurant Cocina Linda, invited her to visit Durango.

“At that point, I also had a daughter who was 12, and I needed to find something else where I could feel safer about letting her go,” Illsley said. “I was in Durango for literally 12 hours and I was like, ‘This is where I’m moving.’”

Illsley said she was supposed to try out living in Durango for about a year, “and I met my husband, and that was that.”

That was 17 years ago. Now a U.S. citizen, Illsley said she has a heard the stories of people living in the Durango community who have been working to become citizens – some trying for almost 20 years – and still don’t have legal status. There’s also news she hears of people encountering Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and not knowing what to do.

These stories have spurred Illsley into action, encouraging her to combine her passions for singing and social justice to help those in need, she said.

“I started deciding that within who I am, I needed to act with an integrity of my being. I had to put it together,” she said.

Illsley will bring this combination to the stage Saturday night at Durango Arts Center when Illsley and her band – Elle Rio on bass, Ryan McCurry on piano, Ted Moore on drums and Clay Lowder on percussion – perform songs that Illsley will sing in Spanish and Portuguese. It’s a reprise of a show the band played in November at The Listening Room at Red Scarf Studio.

Audience members need not be worried if they don’t speak or understand Spanish and Portuguese, Illsley said, because there’s a bigger message in the music.

“I want to be able to communicate from my heart to the people that are out there. And not through the ears; I want it to be a communication that comes deeper than just what you can hear,” she said.

The group will be playing a mix of music, including traditional Mexican and Portuguese, along with newer material: “It’s just a little cocktail of many, many different rhythms,” Illsley said.

While she said the show will be intimate and fun, there’s also a serious component: The show is a benefit for the Colorado Rapid Response Network, a volunteer organization formed by immigration advocates. According to the group’s webpage, CRRN was created “in response to unprecedented Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions.” Volunteers are ready to help people understand their rights when faced with visits by ICE officers.

During the show’s intermission, volunteers with CRRN will talk to audience members about what the organization does, how people can get involved.

For Illsley, the benefit is a way for her to help the community, and as someone who moved here from another country, she knows about the challenges people face.

“I am an immigrant, and of course, this cause for me is big because things are upside down right now, and people deserve to know what to do and people deserve to know what is happening in a loving way,” she said, adding that she wants this show to grow. “I’m hoping, waiting, thinking that this can go somewhere. Every concert that I do from here on has to have a social cause.”

And sometimes, helping a social cause means being brave and speaking out, she said.

“I’m benefiting this organization because if I am blessed and lucky enough to be legal and can speak, I want to speak for the ones that can’t. And that is where I want to be,” she said.

katie@durangoherald.com

If you go

What:

Sara Illsley & Friends in Concert, a benefit for the Colorado Rapid Response Network.

When:

7 p.m. Saturday (doors will open at 6:30 p.m.).

Where:

Durango Arts Center, 802 East Second Ave.

Tickets:

$25, available online at https://bit.ly/2H0yIXz and at the door. Fifty percent of proceeds will go to the Colorado Rapid Response Network.

More information:

Visit https://bit.ly/2BZDtNy.