Peru Negro

Last night I was treated to excellent front and center seats where I was able to fully experience a performance by the Peruvian music and dance ensemble "Peru Negro".

When thinking about Peruvian music, you might first imagine the pipes played by the native Peruvians, high up in the Andes. This is a part of the sprawling landscape of Peru. The part I got to experience last night you can get from the name - Peru Negro, or Black Peru.

Africans were brought as slaves to many places in the new world, and Peru was one of those places. For anyone with an interest in colloquial music, you will have noticed that where African cultures mixed with other cultures there have been some fascinating musical results. Peru Negro is one spectacular example of this. To me the music seemed a bit like what you might get by blending Salsa, Flamenco and African drumming.

In the program notes, the word exuberant was used. One definition of this word is "abounding in vitality; extremely joyful and vigorous". And it certainly was. It was exhilarating!

There were ten dancers, five young men, five young women. There were I think about 11musicians, including two lead singers and several backing singers. In spite of the name, not all members are black, indeed there are a variety of ethnic influences present.

The program was basically a dance, a song, a dance, a song etc. This allowed the dancers to change costumes, which they did often. It probably allowed them to recover a bit as well. The dancing was, shall we say, energetic.

The dancing and singing were not by any means segregated. The female lead singer would often dance a bit as she sang while the dancers were off stage, but she would also sing often during the dancing and move about in between the dancers.
The singers and dancers also worked on engaging the audience, which they managed to do quite well. They put on frequent stage antics, some of which included a young boy who was also a good percussionist and evidently a dancer in training.

Overall it was a thoroughly delightful evening. Peru Negro is on tour all over the country with what appears to be a frantic schedule. Check out http://www.perunegro.org/. If you have a chance to see a performance, do!