Stalwart Originality: New Traditions in Black Performance | Williams College | February 12-14
Pedrito Martinez Band live at Latin Percussion Studio
Pedrito Martinez (timbales), Roman Diaz (congas), Mauricio Herrera (drums), Panagiotis Andreou (bass), Axel Tosca (piano), Onel Mulet (Saxofon), Denis Hernandez (trumpet)
This year marks the 10th anniversary of Stalwart Originality: New Traditions in Black Performance. Created by Annemarie Bean and Sandra Burton, Stalwart was developed to nurture artistic and academic interest in expressions informed by African traditions. Integrating practice and theory, Stalwart provides a context to explore these traditions, as well as new forms of music, dance, media, theater, literature and multidisciplinary art.
This year, Arif Smith, Assistant Director of the Multicultural Center and Berta Jottar, Assistant Professor of Latina/o Studies, are curating New Meanings: Afro-descendant Percussion Practices, a symposium that will network afro-descendant percussion practices from West Africa, the Caribbean and the U.S., and pose the following:
How are these practices interrelated? How do we historicize the dialogue between these practices? Are the conversations between these traditions recent, continuous or contiguous, and why? How are these practices impacted by migration and exile? What factors contribute to changes in percussive style? What contexts do the Diaspora and globalization create for the formation of new, hybrid styles and soundings? What are the new cultural meanings of these traditions?
STALWART ORIGINALITY: NEW TRADITIONS IN BLACK PERFORMANCE is sponsored by Williams College, the Dance Department, the Multicultural Center, the Music Department, Africana Studies, the Dean’s Office, Latino/a Studies, the Gaudino Fund, Latin Percussion, the Black Student Union and Claiming Williams, and co-presented with MASS MoCA.
