Way to Heaven/ Camino del Cielo Meymandi Theatre at Murphey School Auditorium at Burning Coal Through Feb. 8 “Smoke throws its own shadow,” points out the Commandant, played by Francisco Reyes, in Juan Mayorga’s Way to Heaven/ Camino del Cielo, set in a concentration camp disguised as a Jewish “model city” during World War II, […]
Sylvia Pfeiffenberger
Bio: Sylvia Pfeiffenberger lives in Durham and hosts a weekly Latin music show on WXDU.
Posted inMusic
Bio Ritmo’s Biónico
During the last 17 years, Bio Ritmo has issued five full-length releases and one EP, each a milestone along a winding trajectory. Though the salsa band was just getting its sea legs for 1996’s Que Siga La Musica, the hallmarks of a retro-vintage aesthetic were already there: Sonero/ lyricist Rei Alvarez possessed sardonic, sincere power […]
Posted inMusic
La Ley celebrates its fifth year; Durham gets a salsa festival
La Ley’s Fifth Anniversary, Aug. 3, Cary Beneath a sea of cowboy hats, the designer fades carved into the back of men’s haircuts carry geometric designs and lettered phrases like “100% Mexican-made.” They are as well-groomed as the turf at Cary’s Koka Booth Amphitheatre, where thousands have turned up for the fifth broadcasting anniversary of […]
Posted inGuides
David García brings Latin music to the academy, and back to the people
Arts outreach is a two-way street for David García, an ethnomusicology professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and founder of the performing ensemble Charanga Carolina. Whether he’s inviting local musicians to play with his students, inviting Durham high schoolers to sit in with his UNC group, or creating academic conferences that integrate musicians […]
Posted inMusic
Durham Latino Festival; Grupo Fantasma
Durham Latino Festival grows In her native Puerto Rico, Rosalie Bocelli-Hernández grew up calling kites “cometas.” When she started working for Durham City Parks and Recreation, she was surprised that other Latin Americans have at least 10 different words for kite: “Papalote, chiringa, cometa … I have a list. That was so funny,” says Bocelli-Hernández. […]
Posted inMusic
The big, brassy sounds of Orquesta GarDel
This is salsa the way God made it. Onstage, Orquesta GarDel makes salsa dura: a locomotive of energy on steel rails with endless momentum and irresistible motion. The tumbao bass line dances a funky pas de deux around ecstatic piano montunos, or syncopated vamps. Two men share a microphone. They’re here only to sing, a […]
Posted inArt
The living gods of Cuba in Crossing the Water
Crossing the Water: A Photographic Path to the Afro-Cuban Spirit World By Claire Garoutte and Anneke Wambaugh Duke University Press, 258 pp. In the visually rich yet secretive world of Afro-Cuban religion, a photograph can conceal as much as it reveals. Everyday objects, estranged from their original use, seem charged with an eerie intentionality: children’s […]
Posted inArt
Praising famous men and not-so-famous women of Cuba
Durham photographer and writer Alex Harris says he’s learned that “the greatest depth of field is achieved by setting the smallest aperture on a lens.” This technical insight translates to Harris’ single-minded, conceptual approach to photography. By taking a series of pictures of one narrowly defined visual subject, he excavates ideas from the surfaces of […]
Posted inArt
Jenna Bush may be the true compassionate conservative
News that President Bush’s daughter Jenna Bush has written a book has been met with some condescension and smirks. Images of her youthful indiscretions, such as a brush with the law for proffering a fake ID, still haunt the Internet: Blond party girl Jenna; drunk and falling down Jenna; squad-car Jenna sticking her tongue out […]