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Beloved: A Requiem for Our Dead
As the final night to the Hecho en Califas Festival, the queer and trans people of color performance crew, Mangos with Chili, presented the work Beloved. It was a night to honor and remember those that were lost and a celebration of survival and healing.
The night featured many different performers in a wide range of acts from dancing to story telling and spoken word, to cabaret and music and singing.
Video also played a key part in the performance both as a backdrop and as a featured medium to tell their story. It was a powerful night filled with deep emotions and performers who held nothing back.
Los Cojolites
Los Cojolites performed to a packed house Friday night. On tour all the way from Veracruz, they brought the lively music and singing style, son jarocho. Many of their songs had the audience singing along or even dancing in the aisles. It was quite a thing to hear a chorus of heels hitting the hardwood floor to the music. The excitement kept building and then the audience erupted when Los Cojolites ripped into their version of “La Bamba”, perhaps one of the most famous son jarocho songs.
Diáspora Negra – The African Legacy in Latin America
Gabriela Shiroma, the artistic director of the program, said “We are all part of the African culture, the Diaspora. Not only has [it] enriched the Americas but their legacy has taught us to honor our ancestors, to sing without fear, to dance from our hearts, to connect with our internal rhythm, to have a sense of community and gathering, and to laugh about life, but most importantly it has made us aware about our connection and unity. We are all a part of humanity: learning from the struggle for freedom and equality”.
Last Saturday was the second of two performances which gathered an amazing collection of artists together. All of the performers were so talented and passionate and brought their own unique styles to the show.
Kicking the night off was Sandy Perez y su Lade demonstrating Afro-Cuban music and dance. Powerful drumming accompanied some absolutely fierce dancing. It was a sight to see the machete wielding dancer running down the aisle in the audience.
More photos on the next page…
Bolokada Conde concert (7/17/09)
Even the Shattuck sidewalk outside La Peña had rhythm last Friday night as enlivened audience members smoked, recounted, and laughed to the tune of their own drum in between sets of Bolokada Conde’s West-African percussion show. After all, the vitality and display put on by Conde and his fellow drummers Wadaba Korouma, Karamba Dioubate, Mohamed Kouyate, Rafael Forestieri, Josh Tabije, Vijay Rakhra, and Sean Araneda made for an evening of sound that demanded participation from all those under La Peña’s roof.
It is the sign of a successful event when the interplay between drummers on stage is coupled by that between performers and the community below: audience members throwing dollar bills on the stage, in West-African tradition; a woman from the crowd taking up song and the drummers responding as her backup; and there was even a visit from the Giving God, who ascended the stage in the form of an audience member and gave Bolokada his jacket and watch! Aside from the éxito of their concert was the lively Dundumba party that followed, where the whole room gathered around to clap, drum, and bust a move! Que bárbaro…!
If you were at this event, please let us know about your experience by leaving a comment! Anything you’d like to add about the evening, the La Peña community wants to hear!
Also, if you’d like to see photos of the concert and/or follow up with Bolokada Conde, check out his blog: <http://bolokadaconde.blogspot.com/>