Brava and Cunamacue present
Huellas
Afro-Peruvian Dance Theater
April 20 - 21, 2024
Saturday and Sunday at 7:00pm
Huellas is an Afro-Peruvian dance theater performance co-created by Carmen Román and Pierr Padilla Vasquez. It is inspired by the ancestral dance Son de los Diablos. The Son de los Diablos is the first manifestation of resilience for African descendants in Peru. It represents a fight for culture and identity and a way to keep ancestral memory alive. We will share a story of decolonization, resistance and of connecting to ancestral memory. Huellas centers Afro-Peruvian rhythms, instruments, and dances to bring visibility to the African Diaspora in Latinx communities. Our project highlights the history, existence, resistance, and cultural contributions of people of African ancestry in Peru as a way to reclaim and remember a history that is often invisibilized.
Performers: Carmen Roman and Pierr Padilla
Musicians: Kyla Danysh, Holly Shogbesan, Erick Peralta and Pedro Rosales
Tickets
Online: $25
Door: $30
*Fees not included
Photos
Video
about the artists
Carmen Roman is a dancer, choreographer, educator, filmmaker, and emerging scholar. She was raised both in Lima, Peru, and in the Bay Area. As a choreographer, her work is deeply rooted in Afro-Peruvian dance vocabulary and also uses movements inspired by other dances of the African Diaspora and modern dance using her practice as an art form and vehicle for self-expression.
Her article, “The Danced Spirituality of African Descendants in Peru”, was published in a special edition of the African Performance Review (2013). In 2015-2016 Carmen was awarded a U.S. Fulbright Fellowship in Dance to Peru to research Afro-Peruvian dance through practice, performance, and observation. Her dance documentary “Herencia de Un Pueblo (Inheriting a Legacy )” shot in El Carmen, Peru, was awarded Best Documentary and Best Cinematography at the San Francisco Dance Film Festival (2016) and has screened in various cities across the U.S. and internationally in England, Tanzania, and Canada. In 2018 she was part of NYFA’s Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program. In 2019 she was awarded the Mythili Kumar Emerging Artist Award and was commissioned to create new work for the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival.
Carmen has been teaching dance for over ten years to children and adults in the Bay Area and in rural communities in El Salvador and Peru. She holds a B.A. in Dance from San Francisco State University and an MFA in Dance from Mills College.
Pierr Padilla Vasquez is a professional artist trained in performing arts in Peru. He studied traditional Peruvian dance at the Escuela Nacional Superior de Folklore José María Arguedas/ José María Arguedas National Superior School of Folklore. He trained as a professional actor at the prestigious Roberto Ángeles Acting Workshop. He is a member of the renowned Vásquez family, known as guardians of Afro-Peruvian musical traditions. They have passed down the traditions from generation to generation since the end of the 19th century. Pierr has participated in shows by renowned artists and groups, highlighting among them master teacher Victoria Santa Cruz, Grupo Yuyachkani and the Uruguayan singer-songwriter Jorge Drexler. He was artistic coordinator of the Audience Program at the Gran Teatro Nacional del Perú.
As an educator, he has been a professor and director of the Afro-Peruvian Dance Company at the Universidad del Pacífico del Perú; professor at the Center of Music and Dance of the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú; and director and teacher of DanzAfro a school of Afro-Peruvian Dances.
Pierr currently lives in Oakland, California. He is a music and dance teacher in elementary schools and a teacher of Afro-Peruvian dances for youth and adults in the San Francisco Bay Area. Pierr produces the annual festival, Afro-Peruvian Fest. He leads the educational platform, SEMA (Seminario de Música Afroperuana/ Afro-Peruvian Music Seminar). He directs the Afro-Peruvian musical group Huarango, is a musician with the Radio Café trio, and a member of the Cunamacué Afro-Peruvian Dance Company.
about Cunamacué
Cunamacué was founded in 2010 in Oakland, California by Carmen Román — dancer, choreographer, filmmaker, and educator –– born in Lima, Peru, with the purpose of bringing visibility to the presence and cultural knowledge of the African descendant population in Peru. Cunamacué brings awareness of Peru’s African descendants by sharing their deep cultural history through music and dance. Cunamacué promotes the continuity of Afro-Peruvian culture, representing it as a living, vibrant and evolving form whose music and dance can be used as a means of contemporary expression. A reflection of the San Francisco Bay Area, Cunamacué’s movement vocabulary is deeply rooted in Afro-Peruvian dance and uses movements from modern dance and other dances of the African Diaspora to communicate our themes.
Cunamacué contributes to a more just world by amplifying the history, culture, voices, and ideas of African descendants from Peru using music and dance as the vehicle for transformation. We aim to bring free or low cost high quality arts programs to communities of color, youth and adults, as we believe everyone should have equitable access to quality arts education.