BY ROSALBA ROLÓN
For our loyal English-dominant friends who are working on their Spanish speaking skills before Bad Bunny’s concert at the NFL, here’s a grand opportunity to sing, chant, and enjoy the call-and-response experience that Baile Cangrejero offers in a unique way. No better way to rehearse!
For our loyal Spanish-dominant or bilingual friends, you are in for a treat. An extended Halloween of sorts. Sweet memory treats for the soul!
Sometimes I like to share bits and pieces about our process, and about how our productions grow over the years. This is one of those times. Generally, I leave it to the critics to talk about our work. But I can’t resist the temptation to dive right in and share some insights.
Baile Cangrejero has been a featured production in our repertory for the past 30 years. What began as a poetic and musical exploration of African Puerto Rican roots through the lens of gifted, 20th century poets, developed into a dynamic production that has grown over the decades. Our Jorge B. Merced, the then Musical Director Ricardo Pons, and accompanying musicians originally hit the stage, venturing into a concept that aligned with our aesthetics and purpose. Past and current PregonesPRTT artists have taken the stage with Jorge, also succeeded by other actors, to perform this collection of stories, poems, music – including myself!
Live theater is like that. It evolves, it grows, it shifts. But it needs talented, visionary hands to shape that shift. And Baile Cangrejero is no exception. This time around, Jorge, working with Desmar Guevara, who succeeded Ricardo as Musical Director early on, choreographer Veraalba Santa, and a powerful design team, worked to heighten the impact of the poems, landing as stories in their own right. The production centers the female voice, played by the extraordinarily eclectic Anna Malavé, and Cedric Leyba as narrator, turned prison guard, turned boxer, the works! They zigzag in a constant exchange with musicians Anthony Carrillo, Camilo Molina, Alvaro Benavides and Desmar, of course. Together, they deliver every punch with gusto.
And so…the voices of legendary Puerto Rican poets who dared write truths about race, ancestry, courage and love, are live on stage once again. And those ‘pregones’ – or street vendors’ chants – that my generation learned since we were babies, are on stage once again. And I love love love to hear the audience’s visceral response to what they see, hear, and experience when they attend a performance of Baile Cangrejero, with bilingual narrative this time around and supertitles.
And so…
maní maní tostado, que no está crudo ni está quemaooooo…
de coquito mama de coquito, de frambuesa, también de tamarindo…
toco toco toco toco, vejigante come coco!!!
Make sure you catch it before its final performance on November 16th at our Puerto Rican Traveling Theater on 47th Street in Manhattan!
BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!
Our award-winning, free-admission Abrazo/Embrace initiative is back with 15 new performances of Burned, on December 2nd through the 18th, at Pregones Theater in The Bronx. Written by playwright Alejandra Ramos Riera and based on the real post-COVID experience of hospital frontline workers, Burned is an interactive forum theater play where audience members get to choose and play act the ending. Each performance is followed by candid dialogue with a community wellness and mental health specialist. This year, a new series of topical writing workshops and story circles is also on calendar with local Bronx community groups. For more information, visit our website at www.pregonesprtt.org, or call the theater at 718-585-1202.
Photos by Krystal Pagán.