Reyna de Los Angeles, a mariachi band formed in 1994, is made up of women ranging in age from 16 to 42.

By MIREYA NAVARRO

LOS ANGELES - In “Companeras, a documentary about the female mariachi band Reyna de Los Angeles, one of the members explains why she is loath to see mariachi music as work.
“Personally, I don’t want to say: ‘Ugh! I have to go play today,’ says Sylvia Hinojosa, a violinist. “I want to say: ‘Yes! I’m playing today! I want to have a break from my school. I am going to have a break from my husband. I’m going to have a break from my house chores. I’m going to get away and be with the girls and play.’ That’s where it is for us.
That so many of Reyna’s members regard the band more as a passionate hobby than a job may help explain why professional female mariachi bands are not as numerous as their male counterparts. But as portrayed on television in “Companeras, marriage, otherhood and meager pay also get in the way.
But the women bring such power and feeling to this 19th-century Mexican tradition that audiences can only assume they know what they’re singing about when they plead for the return of a lover or berate him for his drinking, betrayals and assorted misbehavior.
“I want a man, not a potbellied macho, goes one song in Reyna’s repertory. Mariachi bands have featured women as singers, but all-female ensembles like Reyna, formed in 1994 in Los Angeles and believed to be one of the first such mariachi bands outside Mexico, have been rare.
The film’s producer-directors, Elizabeth Massie and Matthew Buzzell, said that they stumbled across the band in the early 2000s in Los Angeles . The filmmakers then set out to explore the female interpretation of a male-dominated genre.
The creator of Reyna is Jose Hernandez, founder and musical director of the Grammy- nominated all-male ensemble Mariachi Sol de Mexico. Mr. Hernandez assembled the female group after starting mariachi classes for children in Los Angeles public schools in the early 1990s. Half the students who showed up were girls.
The most experienced of the lot was not a Latina: she was Cindy Reifler, a classically trained violinist from Santa Cruz, California, who had played with a male mariachi band and became Reyna’s first leader. Some married, some single, and ranging in age from 16 to 42, Reyna’s members bonded into a tight-knit group. As the documentary’s title suggests, they are companeras.
“When you tell your friend secrets, and she tells you her secrets and her problems, that’s not a friend, that’s a companera, Laura Paloma Cordova, who plays the harp, explains in the film.
The women felt so strongly about protecting that camaraderie that when two candidates auditioned for an open slot, they rejected the obviously better musician in favor of a younger, less experienced one, 19-year-old Angelica Gomez, whose dream of joining a mariachi band is one of the main stories in the film.
Camaraderie can get the female players only so far. While mariachi music generates more than $100 million in record sales each year, according to “Companeras, the genre relies heavily on live performances. Touring, along with nightly gigs at restaurants, are hard to balance with child care needs and work. And the low pay, about $75 a night when the film was made, seems hardly a reason to abandon school, regular jobs or families for the music.
The Reynas may still be regarded more as a novelty than a bona fide group, but Ms. Massie said the companeras have helped smash one stereotype: “They’ve proven that they are as capable of playing the music, she said.