La Pena - Ayer, Hoy y P'alante
La Pena International Orchestra
Saturday June 13, 2009
$12 adv. $14 dr. - 7pm: art installation viewing 8pm: concert
For advance tickets click here.
Come celebrate our anniversary with a performance by the La Peña International Orchestra and their musical work-in-progress entitled: La Peña - Ayer, Hoy y P’alante featuring Wayne Wallace (lead composer), Aya de Leon (libretto), Lichi Fuentes (guest composer), Hector Lugo, Josh Jones, Ayla Davila, Donna Viscuso, Valerie Troutt and DJ Wonway Posibul. This work, integrates La Peña oral histories into a contemporary musical suite and the social and cultural movements that make up La Peña community. There will also be an oral history art installation by Hector Salgado: Creating Home Away from Home - an exhibit of items and objects by ex-political prisoners and exiles from Chile.
Background on "La Peña - Ayer, Hoy y P'alante"
Exiles from Chile find a second home; Oakland public school students find their music education, Arab musicians find a welcome space to share their music and culture; hip hop artists fight Oakland's super jail; renowned Cuban group, Los Van Van performs; theater artist and organizers come together to educate and inspire community members to organize an end to military recruitment in Oakland schools.
Where could all of this take place? La Peña Cultural Center located in South Berkeley.
Award winning composer, Wayne Wallace, and La Peña staff member, Sylvia Sherman, met in a café in January 2007 to talk about La Peña and Wayne's work. From this conversation, La Peña - Ayer, Hoy, Y, P'Alante, a musical suite about La Peña and the diverse cultural and social movements that make up its community was born.
Wayne commenting on the importance of the project, "This project provides an incubator to develop a cultural alliance between the participants. The Bay Area contains a dynamic music scene, of which La Peña is a vital part. Without La Peña, I might not have met many of the artists with whom I have collaborated over the years. Bringing people together through projects like this is extremely important and documenting our own cultural history is critical."
The idea for a musical suite about La Peña idea resonated with La Peña's staff and board as part of a broad interest in documenting La Peña's history as the institution reaches for its 35th anniversary in 2010. A grassroots committee formed to begin the process of gathering oral histories from community members: founders, volunteers, artists, community organizers and staff members from various generations and communities.
To tell the story artistically, La Peña enrolled the talented writer and spoken word artist, Aya de Leon as the librettist in the process. Aya, whose mother, Ana de Leon was involved in the early days of La Peña, literally "grew up at La Peña".
Aya, speaking about her her "fit" with project says, "I recently turned 40, and held a public birthday party at La Peña. My mother is the ceramic artist whose work is part of the mural at La Peña. I came to La Peña for many events as a child. I sang in the community chorus at La Peña. When I got married, my reception was at La Peña, I have held an annual Valentine's Day event for the last 13 years at La Peña. I recorded both of my live spoken word CDs at La Peña. I represent the generation on the cusp; heavily influenced by hip hop, but also connected to the activist movements of the 70s and 80s that helped shape La Peña. If there is a Bay Area poet who is poised to speak about La Peña's soon-to-be 35 year history, I am she."
Through conversations between Wayne, Aya, and La Peña staff, a vision for a unique artistic project was created envisioned to roll out over a three year period culminating in a world premier in 2010 (La Peña's 35th anniversary). La Peña-Ayer, Hoy y P'alante portrays international historic events and La Peña's response to them through community culture (i.e., the coup in Chile, its exiles, and the arrival with them of nueva cancion; the Nicaraguan revolution and LP's Central American programming; progressive hip hop's role in organizing against the expanding prison industrial complex). The Suite is created around three central themes: I. Another World is Possible: Human Rights, Solidarity, and Cultural Understanding; II. People Displaced and In Diaspora; III. La Peña as Community: Celebrating Life, Diversity & Empowerment.
June 13, 2009, a second work in progress of the 3 year project will be performed. It will feature the La Peña International Orchestra featuring Wayne Wallace (composer, artistic director, piano, trombone), Aya De Leon (librettist, spoken word), Lichi Fuentes (voice, guitar, guest composer), DJ Wonway Posibul (DJ, emcee), Hector Lugo (Latin Percussion), Josh Jones (drumset), Ayla Davila (bass), Valerie Troutt (voice), and Donna Viscuso (flute), guest artist, Fernando Torres (zampona, quena, charango). This year's performance will include new music composed by Wayne and guest composers Lichi Fuentes and Fernando Torres. The libretto created by Aya de Leon draws from her own experience, La Peña archival information and oral history interviews with community members. Excerpts of the audio interviews have been "pressed" into vinyl and will be played by DJ Wonway Posibul, integrating an audio oral history track into the libretto.
In addition, La Peña has commissioned three portable murals related to the themes of La Peña - Ayer, Hoy, y P'Alante, and the social and cultural movements of La Peña's community, from noted Bay Area muralists, Ray Patlán, Juana Alicia Montoya, Tirso Gonzalez, and Susie Lundy. These will be exhibited in conjunction with the performance of the Suite. Finally, in partnership with StoryCorps, a national oral history project, La Peña has been gathering community oral histories.
This year's work in progress presentation builds on a body of work first developed in 2008, and will continue to be developed for its world premiere presentation in 2010. In 2010, the La Peña International Orchestra will be joined by several special local and international guest artists for the premiere. La Peña - Ayer, Hoy, y P'alante has been supported by a grant from the prestigious Creative Work Fund, as well as through La Peña's new works fund supported by The Irvine Foundation, and Kaiser Permanente Thrive. La Peña is grateful to all of its institutional supporters, individual donors, artists and volunteers for their support of this project and the Center as it works hard to provide important artistic programming to the community in these times.
