GOINGS ON / SANTA BARBARA : Mayan Myth : El Teatro Campesino, regarded as a major force for Chicano culture, offers free workshops.

Before Luis Valdez wrote and directed the film “La Bamba” and created the musical “Zoot Suit,” he founded El Teatro Campesino. In 1965, during the great Delano grape strike, El Teatro was formed to express and dramatize the plight of the migrant farm workers.

Now El Teatro Campesino is regarded as a major force for Chicano culture as well as an outstanding theater group. It has received Obie and L. A. Drama Critics awards and its annual Christmas production of “La Pastorela” was adapted for PBS television in December.

El Teatro Campesino will give free public workshops and performances in the Santa Barbara area, followed by a paid performance at UC Santa Barbara on Saturday.

Free performances of “El Baile de los Gigantes,” based on a Mayan myth of creation, will be given: 12:30 p.m. today at Anisq’ Oyo Park in Isla Vista, noon Friday at Santa Barbara City College, West Campus, and 10:30 a.m. Saturday on the Santa Barbara Mission lawn. A free performance of “Soldado Razo” will be at 8 p.m. today at the college’s Garvin Theatre.

For information about the free shows, call 965-5935.

Two one-act plays--”Simply Maria” by Josefina Lopez and “How Else Am I Supposed to Know I’m Still Alive” by Evelina Fernandez--will be performed at UCSB’s Campbell Hall at 8 p.m. Saturday. Tickets are $15, $12 and $10. Call 893-3535.

More theater productions up the coast:

* Access Theatre’s show “Listen for Wings” opens Friday at the Center Stage Theater. Written by Ellen Anderson, the play is based on the life of Santa Barbara resident Billie Burke Perkins, a deaf senior citizen who has a unique and humorous perspective on life. It will play at 8 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays, with Sunday matinees at 2 p.m. through May 24. Tickets are $12.50. Call 963-0408.

* “Daddy’s Dyin’ (Who’s Got the Will?)” produced by Seaside Theatre Company, opens at 8 p.m. today at the Arts & Lecture Center in Carpinteria. The two-act comedy centers around the adult children in a Southern family who reunite to take care of their sick father and find themselves worrying about who’s in his will. Shows are 8 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays through June 6, with a 2 p.m. matinee May 31. Tickets are $8, $6. Call 684-6380.

* The UCSB department of dramatic arts will present “On the Verge,” written by Eric Overmyer, at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and May 19 to 23, with 2 p.m. matinees Sunday and May 23 at the UCSB Studio Theatre. It is the story of three women journeying through time who get caught between the Victorian era and the pop culture of 1950s’ America. Tickets are $8.50. Call 893-3535.

* “Fiddler on the Roof,” performed by the Civic Light Opera, continues through June 7 at the Lobero Theatre in Santa Barbara. Show times are 8 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays, 7 p.m. Sundays, with 2 p.m. matinees Saturdays and Sundays. Tickets range from $9.75 to $26. Call 963-0761.

Angela Davis will give a free talk, “Rivals, Girlfriends & Advisers: Intragender Relations in Women’s Blues,” on the influence of women jazz and blues musicians on African-American culture. The talk will be at 4 p.m. May 21 at UCSB’s Campbell Hall. In 1969, Davis was the center of worldwide protest against the University of California regents when she was dismissed from UCLA for membership in the Communist Party. She is professor of history of consciousness at UC Santa Cruz. Call 893-3535.

Performance artist, painter and writer Karen Finley will present a dramatic reading from her book “Shock Treatment” at 8 p.m. Monday at UCSB’s Campbell Hall. She received nationwide attention in 1991 as one of the “NEA Four”--artists who were denied grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. Tickets $8. Call 893-3535.

The Santa Barbara Symphony’s last show of the season will include Brahms’ Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, featuring Jean Der-Mergerian, followed by Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2. Tickets are $17.50 to $29.50 for the 8 p.m. Saturday show, and $10.50 to $20.50 for the 3 p.m. Sunday show at the Arlington Theatre. Call 963-4408.

The Mariachi Los Camperos will return to Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo for their 20th annual appearance there Sunday for two shows at 4 and 6:30 p.m. The musicians and folklorico dancers, who have performed on “The Tonight Show” and for the Grammy Awards, are on tour with Linda Ronstadt. Tickets are $8. Call 546-3131.

The Vocal Jazz Ensemble of Santa Barbara City College will perform jazz standards and contemporary hits at 8 p.m. Saturday at the college’s Garvin Theatre. Tickets are $6. Call 965-5935.

Lean-To, an instrumental quartet playing so-called neo-fusion music, will perform at 9 p.m. Tuesday at the SoHo nightclub in Santa Barbara. $2 cover charge; call 965-5497.

Filmmaker Mark Mori will introduce and answer questions about his documentary film “Building Bombs: The Emerging Environmental Crisis” when it screens with the recent Academy Award-winner “Deadly Deception: General Electric, Nuclear Weapons & Our Environment” and two animated shorts at 8 p.m. Tuesday at UCSB’s Girvetz Theater. Tickets $5. Call 893-3535.

The official International Museum Day is Monday, but Santa Barbara museums will be celebrating it this weekend with a variety of free events focusing on the international museum theme of “Museums and the Environment.” One activity at the Museum of Art will involve making collages with recyclables. Call 963-4364.

The director of Griffith Park Observatory, Dr. Edward Krupp, will talk about the possible celestial connotations of California rock art, particularly the works found at several Chumash Indian sites. The lecture will be at 7:30 p.m. Friday at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. Admission $5. Call 682-4711.

On Saturday, the Museum of Natural History will hold a spring cleaning sale from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. The surplus from years of accumulation will include books, paintings and even treasures such as an eight-foot-long fiberglass replica of a striped marlin. Call 682-4711.