The Opening Night

This show was awesome. Clyde Fraser came to recite a fabulous poem that shook the history of memories that he envisioned as a young boy, be took us there with him as he read this thought provoking poem that borders a narrative. It was a sure treat. Renee Thompson and Pamela Plagge performed a dance routine that expressed the essence of the African Cuban culture. Rene spoke about the history a bit and the way that the expressions were intended to provoke the ideas about the animals and the communication towards the way the people expressed themselves. "Run the white man is coming or move like the chicken with the arms flapping". Incredible expressions of a people enslaved and holding onto their own culture and history through the dance, the arts, the writing and the religion that is most intriguing. The Santeria religion creates an expression of the Spanish settlers that brought Catholicism to the Africans that were to be ported to America as slaves. History tells us that quite a few did not make it thus Afro Cubans. The religion that they had combined with this newly found Christianity was not intended originally to become what it did. The Afro Cubans kept their own saints from Santeria religion and created the images of statues that would represent o the slave owners and the Europeans Catholic Saints. But the reality is they were a representation of their very own Saints that had similar encounters.
Be sure to come out to artist talk. We will conclude this matter as we view the video by Lidia Ester Aguilera Sanchez interview in Cuba this past week in Cuba, and The dancer Pamela Plagge will return to assist us in creating a video for documentation of this show. Along with Clyde Fraser who will discuss the history of his childhod in Aruba.