“Mama, I want to know where the singers are from,” announced the Trio Matamoros in their most famous song, “Son de la Loma.” Eighty years later that’s still a good question. At the Billboard Latin Music Awards this past month, three young men from Colombia took home two prizes for…
People in Buenos Aires protest that the world never gives Argentines credit for their inventions: the radio, the bus, the ballpoint pen. Charly Alberti, retired drummer of South American pop phenomenon Soda Stereo, has a hi-tech version of an old complaint. He claims the Swiss watch company Swatch ripped off…
Actor Juan Carlos Diaz knows an opportunity when he sees one. Following the speeches recently given by Cuban-born stars Gloria Estefan and Andy Garcia in front of the home of Lazaro Gonzalez in Little Havana, the Venezuelan actor quickly expressed his “support for Elian,” then began plugging his new film,…
The recently released Argentine film Yepeto has a curious timelessness about it. Although one of the characters lugs a laptop computer to the cafés and bars where she composes poetry, the central themes that drive the plot distracted Plato and Shakespeare centuries ago. Which is more beautiful: the athletic body…
In 1996 thirtysomething Chilean authors Alberto Fuguet and Sergio Gomez wrote a manifesto that rejected magic realism as the hallmark of Latin-American literature. In place of the fantastic town Macondo found in the most famous magically real novel, Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, Fuguet and Gomez suggest…
The world’s population of frogs, toads, and other amphibians is disappearing, according to a study released two weeks ago in the journal Nature. Although wart-haters might breathe a sigh of relief, the decline of our slimy friends could signal disaster for us all. Scientists claim herptile health is a good…
In the white-tile living room of his sparsely furnished two-story house in Kendall, Roberto Martino is watching a video of his band, T-Vice, playing at Carnival 2000 last March in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. A mass of black bodies clad in yellow T-Vice T-shirts moves from left to right across the big…
Sergio Giral’s documentary, Chronicle of an Ordinance, is not at all queer. The strait-laced title gives the first clue that the 50-minute video intends to tell, as simply as possible, the tale of the political struggle over the addition of “sexual orientation” to the long list of identity categories protected…
Seven colored cables — yellow, blue, lavender, and gray — extend like tentacles from a black wooden box that sits atop a table in the Sound Arts Workshop, a music studio in a large, dusty Miami Springs warehouse. The seven musicians of Furacan Caribe, each tethered to a cable, sit…
Unsuspecting concertgoers at the Subtropics Marathon, a four-hour performance that featured experimental South Florida composers two weeks ago, reported a shocking sight. Two twelve-foot towers, made of stainless-steel buckets suspended from steel rods, flanked the stage to the left of the entrance to Hice Hall inside the Miami Beach Community…
“You dance the epoch you live,” says choreographer Jeanguy Saintus. The popular Haitian saying serves as a motto for his dance company, Artcho Danse Répertoire. Founded in 1987 by Saintus and co-director, Jean-Rene Delsoin, Artcho presents traditional Haitian dance in a brand-new form. “I wasn’t born in 1804,” explains Saintus,…
Lucy is at it again. Ricky is in white tie and tails, wowing the nightclub crowd with his 1946 hit “Cuban Pete.” He opens his arms wide, inviting the audience to join him in a “dance/of Latin romance. Cuban Pete won’t teach you in a hurry/Like Arthur Murray,” his song…
The government of the country of Cuba continues to maintain a policy of denying common freedom of speech, press, assembly, religion, and human rights to the majority of their citizens. Until this policy changes, Miami-Dade County shall not enter into a contract with any person or entity that does business…
Against the walls of sculptor Rafael Consuegra’s studio, the archangel Gabriel rests in pieces. When soldered together the stainless-steel seraph will stand nearly 36 feet high. Holding a trumpet aloft, this messenger from a vengeful Heaven threatens to usher in the apocalypse. Instead Consuegra’s creation will welcome visitors to this…
In polite Colombian society, well-meaning mothers tell their children in hushed tones: “Don’t say negro, my dear; say moreno.” One word means black. The other means dark. Jairo Varela, leader of Grupo Niche, Colombia’s most successful salsa orchestra, has no patience for such fine distinctions. After spending three years in…
There was a time when a young man with a dream in his heart and a guitar in his hand had to go to the City of Angels to make it as a rock and roll star. That was then. This is now. In the past decade, the Latin divisions…
“Ever since I’ve been old enough to reason,” says singer Tania Libertad, speaking by phone from her home in Mexico, “I’ve seen that the world has its rough spots.” Anointed an Artist for Peace by UNESCO in 1996, the celebrated vocalist chalks up her commitment to combatting poverty, AIDS, and…
Bogotá, 1998. It was another bummer of a Valentine’s Day. In Colombia the lovers’ holiday is known as the Day of Love and Friendship, and though it falls in October rather than February, the end result is likely to be as disappointing as Uncle Sam’s celebration of the saint of…
Lift ev’ry voice and sing/Till Earth and Heaven ring/Ring with the harmonies of liberty. Stirring words fit for a poem, eventually adapted as lyrics to the song many view as the black national anthem. This weekend Florida Memorial College celebrates the 100th birthday of the tune with the musical revue…
Alexandre Pires does not want to talk about the days when he played at weddings and wakes. Looking back over his career during a stop in Miami to promote his latest CD, Juegos de Amor (Games of Love), the Brazilian singing sensation prefers to remember the time troubled boxer Mike…
The faces of the men nursing their beers at Mango’s Tropical Café fill with wonder, like children watching a fireworks display. Brazilian bartender Nice Taber has just mounted the mosaic-tile bar that opens on to Ocean Drive like a proscenium stage. Wearing space-age silver boots with six-inch platform heels, Taber…
The crowd wants a superstar, now. A parade of wannabe microphone masters tries the patience of the first fans to arrive at last month’s Reggae Shock Festival. Later in the night, this annual event will feature some of the biggest names in Jamaican reggae and dancehall music. At the moment,…
