The Greater Hartford area Peruvian music group Negrura Peruana will perform in Washington D.C. at two high-profile venues. The group will play at the Coolidge Auditorium at the Library of Congress on Wednesday, October 12 at noon, as part of the Homegrown: Music of America series presented by the American Folklife Center at the Library. They will also be featured on the Kennedy Center's Millennium Stage on Thursday, October 13 at 6 p.m.

The Homegrown: Music of America series presents musical groups from six states each year. Lynne Williamson, director of the Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program at The Institute for Community Research nominated Negrura Peruana to represent traditional music from Connecticut, and she will provide the introduction to the group at both performances. The Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program serves as the official state folk arts program, identifying, assisting, and presenting folk and traditional artists from across the state. Williamson has worked with Negrura Peruana since 2003. Recently the group was accepted onto the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism¹s Performing Artists Roster.

"In my view, Negrura Peruana is one of the most exciting performing groups active in Connecticut today," says Williamson. "These young musicians and dancers perform with a tremendous love for the music of their heritage -- Peruvians of African descent -- and they exude natural ability. There is nothing choreographed, studied, or contrived about their performance."

Negrura Peruana performs the music and dance of Peru's African and criollo population, originally living in the coastal area around Chincha south of the capital and later transplanted to the urban center of Lima. Enslaved Africans brought to Peru to work plantations eventually intermarried with Spanish settlers and native Indians, blending families, traditions, and music. African rhythms forbidden on drums could be played surreptitiously on packing boxes, giving rise to the signature instrument in the music of black Peru, the cajón. This music, a form of resistance to social and racial domination, always existed among those of African descent (currently numbering about two million, or one-twelfth the population), but did not become well known or popular in Peru until the 1990s.

The music played by Negrura Peruana uses a small number of percussion instruments, including the cajón, the quijada de burro - the jaw of a mule, the campana - a cowbell, the cajita - a little box played by flipping its lid, conga drums, and bongos. Recently the group has added a guitar player. Songs often take a call and response form, with texts featuring storytelling, satire, and social commentary. The song Toro Mata, one of the most popular in the repertoire (recorded also by Celia Cruz), compares a black man to a bull trapped in a bullfight.

Negrura Peruana features four dancers in addition to the seven musicians. Dances representative of Afro-Peruvian culture include the festejo, a dance of celebration and sometimes competition between men; the landó, with a slower tempo possibly derived from a matrimonial dance with Angolan roots; the zamacueca as a more Spanish-influenced version of landó; and the alcatraz, which tells a humorous story with two dancers trying to light a piece of cloth on their back ends - or avoid being lit. Growing up in Lima, members of the group heard and played these styles all their lives, with music as a central part of community celebrations, gatherings, and informal competitions. Although they are not professionally trained musicians, their performances show a deep love for the music and a spontaneous but highly skilled mastery of the complex rhythms, accents, and phrasings especially when accompanying the dancers.

Members of Negrura Peruana immigrated from Lima to the Hartford area of Connecticut in the late 1980s and early 1990s, seeking work. The first performance by Gustavo Chavez and Carlos Navarro took place in 2002 at Central Connecticut State University, when they were invited to demonstrate Afro-Peruvian music during the performance of a local Andean-Peruvian group. Since then the full group has appeared at a number of high-profile venues, such as the recent concert by Afro-Peruvian music icon Eva Ayllón (nominated for a Grammy in 2002), and also at local events such as Hartford's Latino Expo. Negrura Peruana is a popular band for festivals, special activities, and house parties throughout the growing Peruvian community in Connecticut. They have participated in workshops in New York City with African-Peruvian musicians including some from the internationally known group Perú Negro, under the auspices of the Center for Traditional Music and Dance. In accordance with their mission to bring a greater awareness of the music of black Peru to audiences, Negrura Peruana continues to give workshops in Hartford and educational presentations at Central Connecticut State University, including the opening of the new Africana Center and the Peru Club for students.

For more information on Negrura Peruana, call Lynne Williamson at 860-278-2044 ext. 251 or lynne.williamson@icrweb.org or Gustavo Chavez, 860-895-1008 or gche@aol.com.