• Submitted by: admin
• Music
• 06 / 15 / 2010

MultiArts Projects & Production's Executive (MAPP) Director Ann Rosenthal praised the reflection of the African roots in Cuban culture expressed in the work of the folkloric group Los Muñequitos de Matanzas.

New York-based producer Rosenthal said the group's rhythm attracts people and transmits energy.

She made the statement after enjoying the show "Homage to the ancestors", a remembrance of spiritual chants, dances dedicated to the orishas (deities) of the Yoruba liturgy.

The folkloric group, directed by Maestro Diosdado Ramos, made a special performance at the Velasco theatre in Matanzas city, attended by lovers of this kind of music.

Rosental explained that her organization moves artists and their works across borders and cultures without relying on their commercial potential, especially from Africa, the United States and Cuba, included in the "Slave Route".

The Diaspora, she said, has a strength that defends and keeps alive the inheritance from Africa.

Ramos, 64 and a group member since the 1960s, told ACN news agency, their new repertoire include dances and chants devoted to the bigger deities of the Yoruba religion: Elegguá, Oshún, and Changó.

The Muñequitos de Matanzas group has not performed in the US for almost a decade, and now MAPP will try to have them in New York and other US cities by the spring 2011.

While working with the Suitcase Fund in 1992, Ann Rosenthal organized the historic three month US tour of the Cuban folkloric group Los Muñequitos de Matanzas.

The tour exposed large numbers of US citizens to Cuban music and dance for the first time, and played a major role in creating the US market for Cuban performing art.

Source: Cubarte Translation Staff