White Center Now: The blog about White Center

As of noon, Full Tilt Ice Cream is open for the day and into the night, since there are two bands tonight (starting at 9). This is the day FT is celebrating its first birthday, so if you buy a cone/pint, the equivalent will be donated to the White Center Food Bank. And tonight’s a great night to be on 16th SW, as White Center for the Arts has its monthly event, 5-10 pm in the old skating rink. The group had been trying to buy the building — Justin at Full Tilt tells us a deal couldn’t be worked out by the time the building was scheduled to be auctioned, so the auction went forward last week, but, he says, nobody bid, so that may keep the door open for a nonprofit purchase – at a better price than what was being offered. We’ll keep following the story.

They announced the event before the location … but tonight, the latter was revealed – this is Saturday night, by the way:

Location Revealed!!!

This month’s Art EVENT,
brought to you by

White Center for the Arts,

Will be at 9639 16th Ave SW.

Yes, once again, and for the last time,

The Ole Skate Rink
White Center, WA

From 5:00 PM until 10:00 PM

For questions and information, please call

206-306-6230

Trio Lucero And Special Guests

June19th, 2009

7pm

Café Rozella

9434 Delridge Way SW

Seattle, WA 98106

(206) 763-5805

Son Huasteco, Huapango, Sones de Costumbre and Canciones de la Huasteca, Mexico.

Trío Lucero del Norte plays traditional/regional Mexican music from the Huasteca Hidalguense (the State of Hidalgo in the plains along the Gulf Coast) sung in Spanish and Nahuatl (an Indigenous language spoken in Mexico).

Café Rozella kicks off its 2009 Friday night concert/dance series with Regional Dance Music from the Huasteca. Come dance huapango. Trio Lucero del Norte’s hot violin and pounding rhythm executed on jarana huasteca and quinta huapanguera (two variants of local rhythm guitars) will make you want to dance.

PHOTOS OF SEATTLE a photo-exhbit by the New Futures Program will be held on Friday June 12th at 6 p.m.

Information on New Futures can be found at http://www.newfutures.us/

The Exhibit will be followed by a performance by acclaimed Brazilian artist, Eduardo Mendonca.

Cafe Rozella is located at 9434 Delridge Way SW

Phone: (206) 763-5805 – www.caferozella.com

Eduardo Mendonca

The always captivating, Eduardo Mendonca will bring his energetic Brazilian music to Cafe Rozella this Friday at 7 p.m.  As always the performance is al fresco and FREE.

‘Son de los Diablos,’ originated in the Corpus Christi celebrations in Lima during the Colonial Period. As the ruling elite in colonial Peru framed it, blacks represented evil forces in a religious drama. However, by the time of slavery’s abolition in 1854, Afro-Peruvians had appropriated this dance as a symbol of cultural resistance and practiced it especially during carnival in the barrios where these were relocated. The Son was banned from the streets 1940s when President Manuel Prado prohibited carnival celebrations in Lima. In the 1980’s the Movimiento Negro Francisco Congo, a collective dedicated to the recovery and revalorization of Afro-Peruvian traditions, approached Grupo Cultural Yuyachkani to recuperate the tradition of this street dance and to perform it on the streets once again. The group of Francisco Congo would teach the dance, and Yuyachkani would contribute their maskwork. Yuyachkani considered this dance a master dance for young actors because it includes codification of the body, maskwork, dancing, and an active and playful relationship with the audience. Peru’s most important theatre collective, Grupo Cultural Yuyachkani (www.yuyachkani.org) has been working since 1971 at the forefront of theatrical experimentation, political performance, and collective creation. ‘Yuyachkani’ is a Quechua word that means ‘I am thinking, I am remembering’; under this name, the theatre group has devoted itself to the collective exploration of embodied social memory, particularly in relation to questions of ethnicity, violence, and memory in Peru. The group is comprised of seven actors (Augusto Casafranca, Amiel Cayo, Ana Correa, Débora Correa, Rebeca Ralli, Teresa Ralli, and Julián Vargas), a technical designer (Fidel Melquíades), and an artistic director (Miguel Rubio), who have made a commitment to collective creation as a mode of theatrical production and to group theater as a life style. Their work has been among the most important in Latin America’s so called ‘New Popular Theater,’ with a strong commitment to grass-roots community issues, mobilization, and advocacy. Yuyachkani won Peru’s National Human Rights Award in 2000. Known for its creative embrace of both indigenous performance forms as well as cosmopolitan theatrical forms, Yuyachkani offers insight into Peruvian and Latin American theatre, and to broader issues of postcolonial social aesthetics.

May 29th, (Friday) 6pm
Devil’s Dance Parade in White Center

followed by concert at Café Rozella
7pm   9434 Delridge Way SW
Seattle, WA 98106 (206) 763-5805

Cafe Rozella brings the hottest Latin music to Seattle:
Afro-Peruvian Dance and Music: El Son De Los Diablos

Parade Route: Parade starts at El Paisano, on the corner of 15^th Ave. SW and Roxbury, proceeds to La Fondita at SW 98^th St., and then to Full Tilt Ice Cream at 9629 16th Ave SW and then to triangle at Roxbury and Delridge and from there to Café Rozella at 9434 Delridge Way SW.

This is going to be an amazing show. Thee Emergency are bringing some special guests that can not be named. It is going to be a fun, but packed show, so get here early. You are going to be kicking yourself Sunday morning if you miss this one.

Son de los Diablos

Weather should be summery and perfect for the Afro-Peruvian Dance Troupe on Friday (May 29th) at 6 pm.

May 29th, (Friday) 6pm
Devil’s Dance Parade in White Center followed by concert at Café Rozella
7pm   9434 Delridge Way SW
Seattle, WA 98106 (206) 763-5805

AFrican ConeXion Project, Café Rozella and 4Culture Specific Site.

Son de los Diablos Parade

The Parade Route for the Devil’s Dance has been announced: The Parade starts at El Paisano, on the corner of 15^th Ave. SW and Roxbury, proceeds to La Fondita at SW 98^th St., and then to Full Tilt Ice Cream at 9629 16th Avenue SW then to the Triangle at Roxbury/16th Ave. SW/Delridge and then from there to Cafe Rozella for a Muscial Performance. (Choreography by Monica Rojas, Ph.D.)

Diablo Dancing to Afro-Peruvian Rythms.

Afro-Peruvian Dance and Music:  El Son De Los Diablos
NPR States, “Afro-Peruvian music has complex, sensual rhythms. Its instrumentation is spare, originally just nylon-string guitar, bass and a wooden box called cajon. When it started getting outside attention in the mid-’90s, it felt new. The music’s lean architecture and introspective mood differentiated it from the likes of salsa and merengue.”
“The people of the so-called Black Pacific were so far removed from their African origins that the creators of Afro-Peruvian music couldn’t rely much on cultural memory. So they created instruments, rhythms and a compelling musical aesthetic that was largely a product of their imaginations. The pride of Afro-Peruvian music is the lando, an elegant dance with intertwined rhythms and a seductive undertow.”
El Son De Los Diablos will feature the musicians behind Grammy Award Winner Susana Baca.  Truly a unique experience of a hot new trend in Latin American Music.
Admission is FREE

Diablos do choreagraphed dance movements

AFRO PERUVIAN PERCUSSION; The Cajon

African slaves were brought over to the Spanish colony of Peru in the 16th century to work mainly in the gold and silver mines of the high Andes. However their physique was not suited to the high altitude and they died by the hundreds. Their Spanish or Creole (descendants of European settlers in Latin America) masters sent them to work in the milder climate of the desert coast, where they laboured in the large haciendas; private farms. It was in their small huts, on the packed dirt floors of the courtyards overrun with animals and in the fields of cane and sugar cane that Afro-Peruvian music, song and dance were born.

The beginnings of slavery in Peru were different from the rest of the Americas. Although in Brazil or Central and North American countries it was common to import large groups of slaves from the same African tribe, only small and geographically dispersed ethnic groups were brought to Peru. This was meant to discourage rebel movements around the tribal chiefs, and as such, made almost impossible the preservation of communal traditions. Without a common language or tribal authority to remind them of their roots, Peruvian slaves were progressively integrated into the culture and language of their new country. As a result Afro-Peruvian music is a unique blend of Spanish, Andean and African traditions.

Centuries old, this music started to gain recognition in Peru about 40 years ago and it has became popular in the last 25 years. It was born in the coastal barrios (suburbs) and towns and was reconstructed and resurrected thanks to the work of a few artists and historians. Because the Africans were forbidden from playing their own instruments, percussion instruments developed out of the simplest household appliances; spoons, kitchen chairs, table tops, boxes, handclaps, until it reached this century with the creation of the cajon as a specific instrument to play music.

The cajon which is a wooden-box in which the player sits on to play, is thought to have originated in Peru.  The cajon is made out of hardwood with the front cover being of a very fine layer of plywood. The cajon has an open circle cut at the back of the instrument. The player sits and plays two main strokes as well as a few other variations. The main two consist of: the tone of the box which is played with the full palm in the middle of the “head” (this stroke is usually a bass or palm sound on a variety of African derived hand drums found around the world) and the slap which is played on the edge of the “head” of the instrument (this sound also part of the technique used in many hand drums around the world).

Cotito - El cajon

(A big thank you to Latino Cultural Magazine for the photographs.)

May 23rd, (Saturday), 7:30pm,  Afro-Peruvian percussionist Juan Medrano Cotito releases his new CD “La Voz Del Cajon” at  Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center.
$20 including CD.

These events are sponsored by AFrican ConeXion Project, 4Culture and Cafe Rozella.

Dig these cool binister designs by Kim McCarthy.

Kim at work

Once again, it is time for the
White Center for the Arts Open Studio Tour

This coming Saturday, May 16th, 2009 5 PM until 10 PM

Please join us as we present eight artists’ new work.
A wine and cheese event.

White Center for the Arts Building
9639 16th Ave SW
White Center, WA

206-306-6230 for additional information

www.whitecenterforthearts.org

Two more upcoming events to share with you!

Once again, it is time for the White Center for the Arts Open Studio Tour
This coming Saturday, May 16th, 2009 5 PM until 10 PM

Please join us as we present eight artists’ new work.
A wine and cheese event.

White Center for the Arts Building
9639 16th Ave SW
White Center, WA

206-306-6230 for additional information

www.whitecenterforthearts.org

And looking further down the road —

Evergreen High School’s Class of 79
30 year reunion
Saturday, August 8th, 7 pm
Rainier Golf and Country Club
$60 per person

RSVP by July 1st.
email: evergreenclassof79@yahoo.com for details.

Too early to disclose but we have it on good authority that something really great is happening with the former skating rink in White Center.  Details to follow, but it is great news for White Center and for the building.

Trio Lucero Del Norte

Celebrate Cinco de Mayo at Cafe Rozella

Cafe Rozella will host a very special Cinco de Mayo celebration with the music of Trio Lucero del Norte, specializing in Son Huasteca.  The celebration begins at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, May 5th.  Come listen to some authentic Mexican music tinged with an indigenous feel.

Huasteca Region

The region is composed of six Mexican states: Tamaulipas, San Luis Potosí, Querétaro, Hidalgo, Puebla, and Veracruz.

The land known as la Huasteca derives its name from the people that inhabited the area at the time of the conquest, the Huaxtecos. La Huasteca is a multi state region focused at the mouth of the Pánuco River. The region is bounded to the north by the river Soto la Marina in Tamaulipas, to the south by the Cazones River in Veracruz, to the east by the Gulf of Mexico and to the west by the Sierra Madre Oriental crossing through the states of Hidalgo, Puebla and Querétaro in the west.

The distinctive feature of the huasteca region is the music, a style known as huapango or son Huasteco. The terms son huasteco and huapango can be used interchangeably to denote the music of the region, though huapango is the term most popularly used in Mexico.

The huapango is a style of music that is distinguished by the presence of the Trío Huasteco, and the use of the falsetto voice in singing. The Trío Huasteco is made up of three instruments (thus the term trio) – the European derived violin and two guitar variants of local origin – the large guitarra quinta or huapanguera and smaller jarana huasteca.

May 29th, (Friday) 6pm

Devil’s Dance Parade in White Center

followed by concert at Café Rozella

7pm

9434 Delridge Way SW

Seattle, WA 98106 (206) 763-5805

Cafe Rozella brings the hottest trend in Latin Music to White Center

Afro-Peruvian Dance and Music:  El Son De Los Diablos

NPR States:   “Afro-Peruvian music has complex, sensual rhythms. Its instrumentation is spare, originally just nylon-string guitar, bass and a wooden box called cajon. When it started getting outside attention in the mid-’90s, it felt new. The music’s lean architecture and introspective mood differentiated it from the likes of salsa and merengue.”

“Enslaved Africans had to make two long passages to reach Peru, first across the Atlantic, and then over the landmass of South America. The people of the so-called Black Pacific were so far removed from their African origins that the creators of Afro-Peruvian music couldn’t rely much on cultural memory. So they created instruments, rhythms and a compelling musical aesthetic that was largely a product of their imaginations. The pride of Afro-Peruvian music is the lando, an elegant dance with intertwined rhythms and a seductive undertow.”

El Son De Los Diablos will feature the musicians behind Grammy Award Winner Susana Baca.  Truly a unique experience of a hot new trend in Latin American Music.

White Center has an amazing melange of cultures.  Every weekend, you can step back to the Rio Grande Valley and enjoy authentic Tejano music.  This weekend featured the bands La Cima and Banda Kachay.  Pictures courtesy of Greg McCorkle (local artist).

Cafe Rozella will host a very special Cinco de Mayo celebration with the music of Trio Lucero del Norte, specializing in Son Huasteca.  The celebration begins at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, May 5th.  Come listen to some authentice Mexican music tinged with an indigenous feel.

Huasteca Region

The region is composed of six Mexican states: Tamaulipas, San Luis Potosí, Querétaro, Hidalgo, Puebla, and Veracruz.

The land known as la Huasteca derives its name from the people that inhabited the area at the time of the conquest, the Huaxtecos. La Huasteca is a multi state region focused at the mouth of the Pánuco River. The region is bounded to the north by the river Soto la Marina in Tamaulipas, to the south by the Cazones River in Veracruz, to the east by the Gulf of Mexico and to the west by the Sierra Madre Oriental crossing through the states of Hidalgo, Puebla and Querétaro in the west.

The distinctive feature of the huasteca region is the music, a style known as huapango or son Huasteco. The terms son huasteco and huapango can be used interchangeably to denote the music of the region, though huapango is the term most popularly used in Mexico.

The huapango is a style of music that is distinguished by the presence of the Trío Huasteco, and the use of the falsetto voice in singing. The Trío Huasteco is made up of three instruments (thus the term trio) – the European derived violin and two guitar variants of local origin – the large guitarra quinta or huapanguera and smaller jarana huasteca.