3rd Annual South Bronx Folk Festival

South Bronx Folk Festival   

Folklore is an concept that has been around for sometime, actually ages. Every culture has some folklore and tradition to it. On Friday December Seventh Two Thousand and Twelve I attended a beautiful event, it included folklore from four ethnic groups. The puerto Rican's, Dominicans, Hondurans, and Japanese. All of these cultures are very similar in the sense of celebration. Though culture is an important thing folklore is the most important of it all because it teaches us what the origins are. Folklore has tradition, customs,clothing and even music.

The event I attended occurred at the Casita Maria Center for Art and Education and it was called the Danza Fiesta ! Baile Y Teatro Puertorriqueno Third Annual South Bronx Folk Dance Festival. The event was presented by Diversity in the Arts and Nations for Cultural Education and was directed by Hilda Rivera Pantojas, who is a facilitator at Boricua College. The South Bronx Folk Festival is a week long festival meant to highlight the cultural diversity. The event had many featured performers and performances by Danza Fiesta, Irka Mateo and the women of fire, kaoru Watanabe and Hamalali Wayunagu.

Danza Fiesta is a group that was created in 1998 by Hilda Rivera Pantojas. It was created to show and exemplify Puerto Rican culture and folkloric traditions with everyone. Danza Fiesta is made up of a band and a group of performers. They play lots of musical instruments from timbales to cow bells. Danza Fiesta  performs international folklore while explaining taino culture. The performances both included entertainment and performance. The show had casoglos, the women had dresses that were very cultural and elegant, they told a story of a couple that had gotten married and had a jealous family member who was portrayed as a skank and whore. The performance included dancing, singing , spoken word and crowd involvement. There were a part where the married guy started dancing in public with other people and the wife created a spectacle when she saw she was not getting attention. This performance gave us historical context just like many other types of folklore performances.

Although very different from the first performance the Honduran folklore performance brought similar music but with a different vibe and historical background. It was back in 1797 that the country of St.Vincent and the grenadines began what would to be be known as the British Exile of St.Vincent. It was only fitting that during a very energetic performance would these great performers come together with the thought of having a conflict, fighting performance. The performance reflected the fight for St. Vincent in which the Caribbeans were exiled to Honduras where today in the Sandy Bay some of their descendants can be found. The performance was put on by a group called the Hamalali Wayunagu which has the mission to “expose, share and teach audiences about Garifuna culture, heritage and history,” this company was established in the Bronx in 1992 about twenty years ago.

Japanese folklore is similar to most traditional cultures. The Japanese believe in a lot of mother earths energy. Most of the folklore is celebrated using drums and these drums can be anything from traditional drums to Bangos. Th celebrations occur for festivals, religious, and cultural events. They all come from a sense of connections from the gods drawing from earth energy. the performers used high pitch performances to relate how energy is drawn from earth.

One of the last performance s of the day was Irka Mateo and the Women of Fire. The women of Fire and Irka Mateo set out to perform and teach people about Dominican folklore using music and drums called palos. Palos are used to perform Inonu dance or Baile De Atabales. The performances are barrier breakers because there are not many female percussionists out there today.

In closing I had a good time experiencing the folklore and seeing the different cultures. I think being true to who you are and understanding your culture is a pivotal thing that makes you human.

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