Veracruz Hosts Festival Internacional Afrocaribeño
by Eric Mindling

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MEXICO -- The port city of Veracruz is arguably the music and dance capital of Mexico. But there are 12 days each year when there's no arguing the point at all.

If you like Caribbean music and dance you'd be a fool to be anywhere else but in Veracruz at the Festival Internacional Afrocaribeño, which for the last 8 years has filled the sultry, July air of Veracruz with sounds of tropical bliss.

At the 2001 festival musicians came from Cuba, Mexico, Colombia, Panama, Jamaica, Venezuela, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico to bring their unique sounds to Veracruz. Yet the festival could more accurately be called the Festival of Africa in the Americas, for the focus of the 2001 festival went beyond the Caribbean to include Brazil, Peru, the US and even Senegal.

When you gather musicians from all of these nations you know it is going to be good. In 2001 Cuba was the featured nation at the festival with the all-star Estrellas Cubanas playing the very danceable, big sound of old Havana; the singer/songwrier, Victor Lay, the founder of the famous Orquestra Aragon; the legendary Juana Bacalao and the intense, hypnotic African rhythms of the rumba group Yoruba Andabo. William Cepeda came from Puerto Rico, Ruben Blades from Panama, Tanya Libertad stopped over from Peru and Olodum, with their high-energy samba-reggae came up from Brazil.

The heart of the festival is composed of a broad diversity of high caliber but non-headliner groups like Chuchumbe, playing son Jarocho from southern Veracruz, Merenglass with its pulsating Dominican Republic sounds, Quetzal with a son Jarocho-son Montuno-Rock fusion from L.A., Murah Soares performing Brazilian candombole and the Venezuelan group, Teatro Negro de Barlovento, presenting Afro-Venezuelan music, dance and poetry.

While the diversity of Afro-American music encompassed by the festival is not equaled in any other festival, it remains a small, very accessible festival. It is easy to dive right in an become a part of what's going on, from getting right up front for the concerts or going around side stage after the concerts and meeting the musicians to taking the dance and rhythm workshops presented by festival performers at the Veracruz Institute of Culture.

The 12-day long event not only includes concert after concert, free to the public, dance and music workshops, but also art exhibits and lectures on themes of regional interest. Last year the focus of these talks was coffee, this year it will be Black poetry.

If you are sorry to have missed the fun in 2001, you can make up for it this year. The festival will be held July 10-21, with the majority of the concerts happening over two long weekends (12-14 and 19-21). The featured nation at this year's festival will be Colombia. theatre, music and dance troupe Fundacion Colombia Negra, Los Pelaos with Afro-Colombian pop-rock fusion and Los Gaiteros de San Jacinto playing traditional coastal music are all confirmed for the festival. Carlos Vives, Joe Arroyo and Ensamblaje Teatro are also possible guests from Colombia.

Cuba will also be there in force, as the festival will be honoring Nicolas Guillen, the Cuban National Poet. Invited from Cuba (though not confirmed) are Orquestra Aragon, Orquesta Aragoncitos, Ballet Folclorico Nacional de Cuba, and Isaac Delgado (timba).

It is still to soon to give a complete roster of who will be at the 2002 festival, but in the works are Baaba Mal from Senegal, Grupo Folclorico of the Dominican Republic, Tambores de Portobelo of Panama, Samia from Haiti, Compañia de Pepe Carioca from Brazil, Honduras's Ballet Folclorico Nacional Garifuna, Veracruz's own Mono Blanco and Los Cojolites, plus groups from Puerto Rico, Uruguay, Jamaica, U.S., Martinique, Venezuela and Belize.

The festival is organized by the Instituto Veracruzana de la Culutra (IVEC), and the intellectual author is long time Afro-Caribbean music journalist, Ernesto Marquez. To follow the festival's developments you might try checking IVEC's website -- http://www.ivec.gob.mx -- though at the time of this writing nothing has yet been posted. You might have better luck at the unofficial Afro-Caribbean Festival site, http://www.manos-de-oaxaca.com/afrocaribe/festival.htm.

Should you decide to go to the festival, you will want to get yourself to the city of Veracruz and find your way to the malecon, or sea front drive, where the concerts will be held. You will do well to make hotel arrangements in advance, as hotels are booked to capacity by Mexican vacationers for most of July in Veracruz. Another option is to join the Afro-Caribbean Festival Tour for a 10-day trip that includes concerts, dance lessons, exclusive meetings with festival musicians, a trip the beach, pre-Colombian ruins and the colonial city of Xalapa. For more information on the tour see http://www.manos-de-oaxaca.com/afrocaribe.

However you choose to do it, don't miss this festival. Short of spending years traveling the nations of the Americas in search of African influenced music, there is nowhere else on Earth you can go to see, hear and enjoy such a diversity of tropical music and dance.

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