The Artistic Director of GALA Hispanic Theatre, Hugh Medrano, was inspired in 1968 by the work of the Peruvian folklorist and choreographer Victoria Santa Cruz, who was determined to make known the special character and history of Afro-Peruvian music and culture. Now Medrano has created a production that celebrates that music and culture. GALA’s final presentation of its 2010-11 season, “Canto al Per? Negro,” traces Afro Peruvian music back to its roots, from its beginnings in Africa to its emigration to South America, where slaves were imported to cut sugar cane, and eventually to the United States.
“Canto” uses a blend of story, song and dance to tell its tale of survival. Its first song is “Cay? la luna,” a poetic “land?” or slow tempo song. Artfully sung by Vanessa Diaz, the song sets the tone for a production that relies as heavily on poetry as it does on dialogue or monologue.
| Onstage |
| ‘Canto al Per? Nergro’ (‘Celebrating Afro Peru’) |
| Where: GALA Hispanic Theatre3333 14th St., NW |
| When: 8 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays; 3 p.m. Sundays through June 26 |
| Info: $20 to $38, 800-494-8497, in Spanish with English surtitles |
The action begins with slaves coming slowly onstage, their hands chained. The cruel Overseer (Javier Ter?n) tells them that they “will not dance.”
Yet the primary argument of “Canto” is that the Afro-Peruvians did dance and that dancing was one of the important things that allowed their culture to survive and flourish. As they cleverly made instruments out of crates and gourds, they outwitted their suspicious masters.
Gabriel Garc?a’s text nicely mixes the slower songs with the more animated, the sung numbers with the purely instrumental. In one of the first songs, Susan Duston sings the plaintive “Az?car de ca?a,” which tells of a woman leaving her home at daybreak to cut sugar cane.
Immediately afterward, three musicians play “Contrapunto”(“Percussion”), a rousing combination of conga drums, bongo drums, and acaj?n, a box on which the musician sits while drumming on one of its sides. This in turn is followed by a celebration of that instrument. “Rompecaj?n” sung by the talented Vicky Leyve and her daughters Dunston and Diaz.
Mariana Fern?ndez’s set uses two sheer, vibrantly colored ceiling-to-floor curtains, on either side of the stage. It’s a good design for a musical that describes a journey that moves over thousands of miles and needs to suggest various places on that journey.
Although the quality of the singing is uneven in places and although some of the dialogue in Act II seems superfluous, Medrano’s direction is precise and crisp and the dancing is superb throughout. The choreography, by Aramis Pazos-Barrera, reveals multiple layers of cultural inheritance.
From the simple, early folkloric dances to the complicated modern “Saca la mano,” led by Vicky Leyva, “Canto” visually records the musical and cultural history of a community that knows its soul.
