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Latin food dance and culture makes up a vast part of Western Mass
and WGBY will be hosting a special event this weekend to celebrate
that
but what sets it apart from any other culture and how's it impacting
Springfield
well joining me today is Heshima Moja internationally acclaimed musician
Christian Brambilla with Frontier grill and Lucilla Santana
with the WGBY Latino advisory board
we'll start with you Heshima talking about the
latin music how it what sets it apart from
every other music all that music latin music is very broad
sometimes here particularly on the eastern coast of the United States
people kinda acquaint latin music with simply Puerto Rican culture
however there's thirteen countries throughout the latin diaspora
so that makes for a very broad a spectrum of music
obviously in in the Caribbean PuertoRico Dominican Republic
Cuba we 're known for styles of music like bomba
Plana Roomba timber
salsa, meringue, batchatcha
but then if we get into South America we have byanctha
we have song ahurtcha from
Mexico so many different styles music and of course in the Iberian Peninsula in
Spain
where we have flamenco which is considered the motherland of the
Latin diaspora but then
we get into the mixture
which we call music faculty it's really the the mixture
of the music of indigenous cultures from which ever respective country we're
dealing
with as long as well the Spanish music music from the Iberian Peninsula
and then in the countries that were affected by
by slavery then of course we have the the influence
African music so one thing for instance in
the Caribbean would be the clava
the clava is central to all Caribbean music and each style of latin music has its own
distinct
clava so then of course
those blends combined with
of course singing in Spanish which is the most obvious the most obvious
distinction
from other American forms of music but those
styles of music then blend with even here in the United States
and become hybrids of pop music so we have now bachata though which is
mixed with
pop music hip-hop we have a regatone we have all these different styles music
that evolve and become hybrids okay wow
and I know there's a lot of different kinda music like you had mentioned
actually took them salsa lessons here at WGBY
in preparation for this gala coming up this weekend please tell me making food
is not as hard as it was for me to learn how to dance
Well first I want to touch on,
a lot of people mistake Mexican food or Latino food
as being really spicy it's not really
always like that you know yes we do like spicy food yes we do have chilajs on
our food and everything
but it's not always like that you know it's easy just
whatever your preferences you know
Making Hispanic and Latino food is
very simple we
relatively eat things that
people normally wouldn't you know I've gone to mexico multiple times and we
have stands over there that have
you know tongue tacos we have
tacos of any part of the body
of the cow that you can possibly imagine
you know people here just wouldn't find it appetizing
but just something you know traditionally we were raised with and
personally I think it's puzzling I think it's just amazing
and you know people just aren't used to that and I think
people just fine Latino food to be
different and that's fine do you know there's nothing wrong with that you know
but if people tried I think they will like it a lot more
and that brings us to you Lucila we're going to be trying some latin food
and we're gonna be doing some latin dancing. talk about presencia this weekend
We are thrilled about presencia this Friday actually
Was just sweating, practicing right in the other room for the salsa lesson
and I saw you with a couple of moves just the other day are you ready to?
I'm hoping I'm ready for Friday night, we'll see!
so what has gone into --there will be about 10 different restaurants along with
Frontera Grill
participating we're going to have some dancing going on
yes we're going to have food tasting with 10 restuarants and we are going to have
somewhat of a dance competition
we're partnering with business owners and local organizations
and we have been practicing bachata, meringue and salsa also we're
going to have a showcase
and actually the audience is going to be able to vote
the best dancers well good thing I'm not a part of that dance challenge thing
because I
definitely will not be winning that that is for sure
but for any information anybody's interested in attending presencia this
Friday evening
you can go to www dot wgby dot org slash presencia
or you can also RSVP on Facebook as well we'll have all that information
on connecting points website as well I want to say a big thank you to all my
guests for joining me here today in
exploring this wonderful culture that is such a huge part of Springfield as
well
thank you guys SO much for being here!