I am a parent of one of the Guarangitos, the La
Peña Afro Peruvian La Peña Afro Peruvian Youth
ensemble. My daughter was born in the United
States but strongly identifies herself as a
Peruvian. At 8 years old she lives away from her
mother’s country so we as parents struggle to
find ways to keep her attached to her cultural
roots. She craves information about Peru and her
mother’s country, in fact she developed her own
saying, “How do you know who you are, if you
don’t know your before?”[Continue Reading]
Search Results for: 8
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/>
Aguacero
Last Saturday Aguacero, an Afro-Puerto Rican Bomba music and dance group, gave an incredible performance in the theater. Lively rhythms from the drums and percussion drove the performance as dancers gave fiery improvisations to the beats.
It was really cool to see this interplay between the drummers and dancers. Dancers called for beats and accents with a flip of the hands or a turn of the hips. It all made for a very exciting performance that was great to watch come together.
This performance also featured singing and musical accompaniment by various instruments. Also featured were guests Rico Pabon, Sandra Garcia Rivera and Lina G. Torio.
If you were at the performance, let us know about your experience by leaving a comment. If you’re interested in getting hands on experience with bomba, Héctor Lugo and Shefali Shah hold workshops at La Peña for both adults and youths. For more information go to La Peña’s Classes page or check out the Bomba y Plena Workshop site.
Continue to the next page for more photos and a short video clip.
La Peña-Ayer, Hoy y Pa’lante Work in Progress
Last Saturday was the second work in progress performance of the suite of music about La Peña. The suite was written by Wayne Wallace with libretto by Aya de Leon and performed by the La Peña International Orchestra.
The enthusiastic audience was comprised of people who had been coming to La Peña from the beginning, over thirty years ago, to people who had come for the first time that night. It had a very community feel as time was given at the end for audience members to ask questions or make comments about the night.
Spoken word, singing, music and video all came together to tell the history of La Peña and it’s importance in the community and Bay Area music scene. It will be exciting when this suite has it’s official premiere in 2010 to help mark La Peña’s 35th anniversary.
Visual art was also a big part of the night. There was an art installation curated by Hector Salgado titled,”Creating Home Away from Home”.
There were also several newly commissioned murals in the main theater.
For more photos, continue on…
La Peña-Ayer, Hoy y P’Alante Rehearsal
It’s so inspiring to see the work of composer, Wayne Wallace and librettist Aya de Leon and all the great musicians of the La Peña International Orchestra come together to create this living, breathing performance about our community’s history! I hope folks can come see the performance on June 13th!
The second rehearsal of La Peña-Ayer, Hoy, y P’alante last Friday was so exciting. DJ Wonway Posibul put excerpts of community member interviews onto vinyl to integrate into Aya de Leon’s libretto. Those stories combined with the music and spoken word added an incredible layer to this piece. It was also great to hear Lichi’s new song, and Wayne’s music come to life. Congratulations La Peña International Orchestra!