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Download a jpeg copy of the pictures above. It is real important to us that you get to know more about Los Pleneros de la 21. We do a lot and have done a lot. Thats why we now have a webvsite; so that we can share with more people about the Bomba and the Plena of Puerto Rico. The best way to this is by you the learning a bit about us. We are unlike most organizations and we would like very much for you to get to know us and little bit of our history in preserving this music, tradition and way of life. Los Pleneros have a long histroy as a music group and are very active as an organization in the Puerto Rican/Latino community in New York. Please review some documents we've prepared for your review below. |
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Los
Pleneros de la 21 (LP21) is a non for profit organization which
serves the Puerto Rican/Latino community. LP21 is alsoas well
as a performing ensamble which preserves the Afro-Puerto Rican
traditions of The Bomba and Plena. They are based in "El
Barrio," which is East Harlem in New York City.
Canada and have even performed in Russia and
Hawaii.
good at what they do and keep the Bomba and Plena by their perf
ormances
and recording (
ery much involved in education and play nearly
everyday throughout the year in one of 
the many public and parochial school in New
York City, New Jersey and Conneticutt. We also play colleges
and other types of institutions including the non-academic.
We educate as we go through our songs and dance, through our
workshops and residencies and now through our website! :)
LOS
PLENEROS DE LA 21, formed in the South Bronx, New York City,
in 1983 by National Heritage Fellow, Juan Gutiérrez-Rodriguez,
is a group which has spanned three generations of Puerto Rican
musicians, dancers, and artisans dedicated to performance of
BOMBA and PLENA, two styles of Puerto Rican music which springs
from deeply rooted African traditions. The group consists of
traditional practitioners and professional musicians who have
been deeply influenced and formed in the traditional performance
and execution of Bomba and Piena, coming together to keep their
traditions alive. Not only do they play, sing, and dance, but
they make their own instruments. The name evokes the place of
origin of its members, the now gone Parada 21 (Bus Stop 21),
a predominantly Black neighborhood in the Santurce municipality
of San Juan, Puerto Rico that produced many of the island's
most accomplished interpreters of Bomba and Plena.
LOS
PLENEROS, which means Plena practitioner-musicians, are, according
to ethnomusicologist Nick Spitzer "widely admired as the
premiere Bomba and Plena group". LOSPLENEROS were also
the first New York-based Puerto Rican Bomba and Plena group
to perform at world-renowned Carnegie Hall. Though LOS PLENEROS
have performed at such renowned stages as Symphony Space, Lincoln
Center; at such important festivals as the Smithsonian Festival
of American Folklife, the International Folklore Festival in
Russia; Hawaiian Tour, University of Hawaii at Manoa; Westcan
Jazz FesVvals Tour and New Mexico State Tour and have been featured
in acclaimed, Sesame Street, LOSPLENEROSDELA21 remains deeply
rooted in the Puerto Rican community maintaining an active program
of workshops, performances, and lecturedemonstrations for children,
teenagers, senior citizens, and the community in general.
Their
music has roots hundreds of years old, from the days when Spanish
colonists brought West African slaves to cultivate Puerto Rico's
sugarcane. It melds European, African, Native Taino musicai
traditions. "Our music is about sharing and celebrating."
comments Juan Gutiérrez-Rodriguez, musical director and
founder of LOSPLENEROS. "This music happens because of
peoples' needs to express themselves. And we continue to play
it at an effort to introduce it to new audiences hoping to bolster
a tradition." Their performances, according to The Advocate
and Greenwich Time "...resemble much more of the spontaneous
street jam out of which this music was born." It has a
distinctive New York performance style which goes back forty
years when LOSPLENEROS original members learned themselves to
play Bomba and Plena in Puerto Rico.Their enthusiasm, showmanship,
and command of the genre has won LOSPLENEROS DELA21 a respected
place in the folk and world music circles, with their performances
being described as "magical melting of the invisible curtain
between performers and audience...", (The Albuquerque Journal)
and their drumming "...incendiary, complex and precise,
made the room rock." (The New York Times)
As
a performing ensemble we give to our constituents our maxium effort
and expression of this art form called the Bomba and the Plena.
We dance, sing, drum, jump, scream, yell, compose verse, create
new music, experiment for our public performances whether they
be concerts or dances or workshops. We do not just perform the
Bomba and Plena we LIVE IT! We bring with us to work from our
homes and take right back again. We bring it to the coffee shop,
supermarket, school house, auditorium, dance hall, stage-La Bomba
y Plena is what we do.
Our
art takes many forms: it is individual, it is ceremonial, it is
refiexive. But above all it is a celebration of people getting
together to share and excludes no one. Most of the Puerto Rican
and Latino youth in the United States have their own folk and
music expressions which give them a sense of belonging and the
chance to practice activities they would have experienced in their
own countries. These activities also show them to release negative
feelings and to restructure a sense of cultural and ethnic identity
that can be useful tools in developing cultural, educational,
and social programs, specifically aimed at stimulating positive
and constructive group and family relations as well as those aimed
at preventing violence and the use of alcohol and drugs abuse.