What others are saying about our star, Lalo Izquierdo

Lalo Izquierdo is the lead percussionist, lead dancer, the choreographer, artistic director and the lead interview subject in our documentary, A Zest for Life:  Afro-Peruvian Rhythms, a Source of Latin Jazz.   We thought you might like to know more about him.

He has taught, held workshops, and performed all over Latin America, the United States, and elsewhere.  He was also chosen to represent Peru in the Olympic Games held in Mexico City.  

Here is some information from articles about him, and reviews of his work:

Lalo Izquierdo is a true master of the cajón.

With his great talent, Izquierdo has been promoting Afro-Peruvian culture throughout the entire world for many decades.

                Carlos A. Quiroz, El Peruanista, Mar. 11, 2008

José “Lalo” Izquierdo is a renowned and acclaimed master percussionist, dancer and choreographer born in Peru.  He is a former member of the Teatro y Danzas Negras de Perú of Victoria Santa Cruz, a co-founder of Perú Negro, and current artistic director of Grupo Raíces Afroperuanas 

               Carlos A. Quiros

He is also charismatic with or without dark glasses.

[Lalo Izquierdo] has been artistic director and instructor in secondary schools and universities all over Peru, as well as in the United States (Standford University, San Francisco Library, Gala Theatre, etc.)  and in Venezuela, Costa Rica, Colombia, Holand and Austria.

Izquierdo was choreographer of work presented in the cities of Cañete and Lima in Perú; and in Los Angeles, Washington, DC., New Jersey, San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland, and San José in the United States, as well as others.

            article in SienteMag, Oct. 4, 2011

OUR NEXT BLOG will be about the reactions from the private screening we are holding of A Zest for Life, and related topics. 

Dance of the Devils and the Hatajos de Negritos

In doing research about Afro-Peruvian music and dance, I've learned about the Dance of the Devils and the Hatajos de Negritos.

We spend a certain amount of time on the Hatajos de Negritos in the documentary, A Zest for Life.  You should even expect to see some video clips from this celebration on the DVD.  It's a 300 year old set of dances accompanied by music intended to celebrate the birth of baby Jesus.  It starts on Dec. 24 and ends on Christmas day, but then there's another celebration on 12th Night (Jan. 6) to commemorate the arrival of the wise men at Bethlehem.

Jesus Lopez in one of the hatajos.  Photo courtesy Carlos A. Lopez and los Cimarrones.

The hatajos are groups of men and boys who dance wearing costumes resembling a priest's dress, carrying bells and sometimes incense burners.  For part of the celebration, they do fancy footwork, or zapateo, as part of the religious celebration.

This celebration dates back to the time of slavery when the Spanish masters used the footwork and dance to help convert their African slaves to Catholic Christianity. 

The footwork came from out of the Spanish tradition but also out of the African tradition, and presumably the importance to many Africans of footwork as a way of communicating with Mother Earth was part of the appeal the dances and the celebration held for them.

Son de los Diablos performance.  Photo courtesy Madeleine Campos and America Baila Dance Company.

The Dance of the Devils (Son de los Diablos) is something we only have time to mention briefly in our documentary.  It also uses the zapateo, is also done by groups of men accompanied by musicians, and is also done as part of a Catholic religious celebration-in this case, Corpus Cristi, which comes in the early spring.  And it also dates back to the time of slavery.

The dancers wear masks of devils.  The chief devil carries a large book in which are written the names of all the people he will carry down to hell in the coming year (or that he carried down the past year-I'm not sure of this).

Son de los Diablos.  Water color of the 19th century Peruvian artist, Pancho Fierra.

 Currently, the dance is mostly done as a performance presentation, although in 2004 it was performed on the streets of Lima, Peru, to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the ending of slavery.  (Note that sources give two different years as the year that slavery ended:  1854 and 1856.  Again, I'm not too sure why,.)

A CD of flamenco cante by Antonio de la Malena

I have been trying for at least two years to persuade Antonio de la Malena to record a CD of flamenco cante.  At last, I´ve succeeded.

Bear in mind that he has two CDs of his own already, and is one of several people on countless other CDs, but his own two CDs are of flamenco fusion and the others, well, they are group efforts.  But Antonio is first and foremost a singer of flamenco cante--flamenco puro.  The old stuff.  The original stuff.  The stuff that led me, personally, to flamenco.

El Bo, Antonio de la Malena, Manuel Parilla, and others.

I was very, very pleased, then, that he finally agreed to doing the CD.  It´s a joint venture, meaning that Palomino Productions gets to finance it (oh, joy) and another organization (which shall remain nameless for the moment) will do the marketing.  Antonio, of course, does the singing and all the organizing of the recording sessions and I go along for the fun of it.

We´ve now gotten 8 of the minimum 10 tracks recorded.  We have two more recording sessions in which he´ll record either 3 or 4 more tracks (so it will be a more-than-complete CD), then a final session where the technician works the sound (with Antonio supervising).

The bulerias fin de fiesta crowd, with a couple of friends and me, on the far right.

 For all but two tracks, Antonio is the only singer;  on the other two, he´s joined in one case by his brother Manuel de Malena, and in another (the fin de fiesta), he´s joined by 8 other people!   In all but two tracks, there is also a guitarist (Manuel Parilla for two, Malena Hijo for four and Santiago Moreno for two).   In the other two, Antonio sings alone.

Two things that make everything a bit of a cliff-hanger are that a) I go back to California in two weeks (and we REALLY want to get all the recording and sound work done before I leave) plus b) the sound studio owner-operator´s wife is very pregnant and about to deliver.  When she does, the sound studio will close down for a week.  And of course, we have no way of knowing exactly when that will happen.

El Bo is the principal palmero-jaleo person.

More on this later, but I will say that this is going to be a very good CD.

OUR NEXT BLOG will be about what others are saying about Afro-Peruvian music, dance and culture.

Photos, links and more about Afro-Peruvian music, dance, culture

Ok, so you might think that if no one knows about Afro-Peruvians, and Afro-Peruvian music and dance, well, maybe there's a good reason.

WRONG!

First of all, in browsing the web, we've come across some interesting links, travel journals, videos and other material about Afro-Peruvians and their music and dance.  Below, for example, is a link to a selection from a travel journal of a couple who decided to travel around the world (literally) and brought along their video camera.  Since one of them is a writer, and obviously one of them has an eye for photography, it's worth checking out.

LINK

Carlos Lopez/Cimarrones have kindly agreed to let us use this photo of Jesus Lopez dressed for a special Afro/Peruvian event called the Hatajo de Negritos.

 In addition, on YouTube we found a treasure trove of photos of Afro-Peruvians (and other peoples and other places) posted by Hugeaux (Hugo R. Miller).  He has 99 videos on his site, most or all of which are moving images of his photographs, with music behind them.  On the subject of Afro-Peruvians, here are two of them but you might want to take a look at his large collection.  (And by the way, he also has a blog that is his travel journal;  it's address is on the YouTube presentations, so I won't add it here unless someone asks me.)

LINK
LINK

Hugeaux has promised to let us use some of his photos in our documentary, A Zest for Life:  Afro-Peruvian Music & Dance, but since we don't have the photos yet, I don't want to count my chickens before they hatch.  Will keep you informed!

This photo that Daniel Moore is allowing us to use shows the very famous Afro-Peruvian music and dance master, Amador Ballumbrosio (recently deceased).

And then, two people who HAVE sent us photos for the documentary are also on the web:  Daniel Moore, and Carlos Lopez of the Afro-Peruvian organization Cimarrones.

Here are THEIR web sites:
Daniel Moore  (who runs a travel agency) LINK
Carlos Lopez and Cimarrones LINKhttp://www.cimarrones-peru.org

I've found lots more links, including to some fabulous music and dance, but this is enough for now.

OUR NEXT BLOG will be about recording a CD of flamenco cante by Antonio de la Malena.