Current Exhibit
Opening Reception
Thursday, December 19th, 2024
7 PM – 9 PM
City Lore Gallery: 56 E 1st Street, New York, NY 10003
Exhibit run: December 19th, 2024 – February 14th, 2025
Rumba Entre Puentes is a community-based multimedia exhibition that shares and interprets the Cuban rumba tradition as performed in New York City over the past three decades through ethnographic research, musical performance, and original cultural documentation. The title is both a symbolic nod to NYC (a city between bridges) and the musical community’s intergenerational resilience, as they sustain the rumba tradition across time and place.
In New York City in particular, rumba represents a unique space where Cubans from various generations and walks of life, have come together over the years, to also share cross-culturally with other groups such as Nuyorican, Dominican, African Americans and in recent years a large South American presence (Colombian, Ecuadorian, Chilean etc.) throughout the city.. Beginning with the storied Central Park Sunday rumba, which has been going strong for more than six decades, these musical manifestations are at once sites of cultural maintenance and incredibly rich melting pots of diasporic percussionists who find refuge in the communal practice. The past decade has seen significant revitalization to this grassroots musical landscape with new rumbas cropping up from Prospect Park, Brooklyn to the Lower East Side in various venues (5C Cultural Cafe, Zinc Bar, Mi Salsa Kitchen etc) and private homes.
This exhibition, which defies the traditional presentation in a four-walled gallery, will share documentary photographs by celebrated Cuban Rumba photographer Juan Caballero, and pay homage to the past, present and future of this tradition in NYC. In addition to approximately 25 still images documenting the various manifestations of Cuban Rumba in and around NYC, the exhibition will feature a video loop from Caballero’s personal archive and sound bites from participating musicians. The show will be regularly activated via live performance and public programming (bi-monthly open Rumba & 2 panel discussions/film screenings to be confirmed).
Often described as an expert observer and a participant storyteller, Caballero’s photographic work captures everyone from the most revered drummers, singers and dancers to those community members who contribute to the rumba scene by means of making food and simply being present. His self-proclaimed personal mission is to put this documentation back in the hands of those who make these musical stories come alive through exhibitions like this one.
“As the title suggests, Rumba Entre Puentes (Rumba Between Bridges) truly encapsulates some of the best of what we have to offer via City Lore’s Creative Traditions – Cultural Ambassadors Program. This unique artist residency program seeks to empower community scholars and artists working intersectionally and between generations of cultural practitioners, so that urban folk culture can thrive in our City that never sleeps. Roger Consiglio and Juan Caballero are key players in New York City’s rumba community, who whether it be through musical performance or the click of a camera, are doing key work to honor and push this tradition forward by placing power back in the hands of those who make these musical stories come alive. – Naomi Sturm-Wijesinghe, Creative Traditions Program Director
Cultural Ambassadors
Roger Consiglio, is a Havana-born Cuban musician. who has been singing and playing Afro-Cuban music either religiously or on the stage for over 15 years. In Miami and New York City, he has been a part of ensembles such as Sikan, Oyu Oro Afro-Cuban Experimental Dance Ensemble, New Yor-Uba, Rumba de la Musa, and the Roman Diaz Ensemble. Along with his peers, Roger shares a passionate love for the culture emanating from Cuba, and is a young leader in New York City’s storied rumba scene. The past three years have seen significant revitalization to this grassroots musical landscape with new rumbas cropping up in Prospect Park and the Lower East Side, in addition to the historic Central Park Sunday rumba event. Roger’s work lies at the center of this burgeoning movement, which brings together generations of practitioners and shares the artform across NYC Caribbean communities.
Juan Caballero Cabrera was born in Havana, Cuba. In 1994 he took his first steps into the world photography on a trip to Buenos Aires, Argentina. Soon after Caballero began studying with the Association of Photographers of Buenos Aires, and later worked as a photographer for the “Argentina Foundation to Aid Immigrants.” With this group he covered the First National Party for Refugees in Argentina and his photos were published in their magazine. It was in Argentina working with refugees from around the world that he first realized the powerful impact a photo has, effectively documenting a country’s social and political realities. In 1997 he returned to Cuba to study at the International Institute of Journalist José Martí. In 2000 Caballero immigrated to the United States landing in New York City. It was here that he discovered the intricacies of Cuban Rumba performance abroad and began documenting various waves of Cuban immigration to the United States. His work as a documentary photographer spans more than three decades and has been featured in such publications as the Boston Globe, Oxfam America, El Estornudo, El Diario de Cuba and many others.
“Cultural Ambassador Residency”
Rumba Entre Puentes, the exhibition, is the outgrowth of a Cultural Ambassador Residency by the same name, led by Roger Consiglio and Juan Caballero. More than an exhibition, it is a community-based interdisciplinary folk arts project that shares and interprets the Cuban rumba tradition as performed in New York City through ethnographic research, musical performance, and original cultural documentation.
Building on their collective experience and years of research, organizing and participation within NYC’s Cuban community and flourishing rumba scene, Consiglio and Caballero are working to produce the aforementioned exhibition and an associated recording project that captures this unique moment in the history of NYC rumba. Music from the forthcoming album will be performed live, at the exhibition opening and documentation from the recording process will also be used in the exhibition.
The original recording project seeks to honor master rumbero and renowned Cuban percussionist Roman Diaz through an album grounded in the work of his performing ensemble that also invites guest artists from the varying generations, perspectives and NYC rumba scenes. As a member of Diaz’s ensemble and one of his main proteges, Consiglio has worked collaboratively with Diaz and fellow ensemble musicians to select and develop repertoire for the recording, while also considering the contributions of guest artists to the larger story arc.
The album is recorded and produced by local media-arts non-profit and regular City Lore collaborator, Los Herederos. While we often think of an album as the end result of musical preparation, this recording is unique in that it captures the experience of next generation rumba performers learning the tradition with guidance from community elders/musical pillars. Recorded live on location in a Brooklyn basement infamous for intimate rumbas and community celebrations, the album is at once a musical offering and an archival activation for generations to come.
About the Creative Traditions Cultural Ambassadors Program
The Cultural Ambassadors Leadership program aims to equip a generation of cultural leaders whose life’s work is to further the cultural and artistic wellbeing of their communities, and to provide them with the tools they need to accomplish that. The residency style program hosts cultural heritage leaders/practitioners for periods of 6-9 months and incubates their creative projects that support longer term cultural sustainability initiatives throughout the City.
Founded in 1985, City Lore’s mission is to foster New York City – and America’s – living cultural heritage through education and public programs in service of cultural equity and social justice. City Lore encompasses a Lower East Side gallery space, performances, lectures, the People’s Hall of Fame, a POEMobile that projects poems onto walls and buildings, and programs throughout the five boroughs.We document, present, and advocate for New York City’s grassroots cultures to ensure their living legacy in stories and histories, places and traditions. We work in four cultural domains: urban folklore and history; preservation; arts education; and grassroots poetry traditions. In each, we seek to further cultural equity and model a better world with projects as dynamic and diverse as New York City itself.
Los Herederos (the inheritors) is a grassroots media-arts non-profit organization dedicated to inheriting culture in the digital age. We engage in research-based documentation for public consumption to produce projects, programs and services that address the realities of local culture, evolving communities, and an increasingly diasporadical immigrant experience. We believe in the power and complexity of transmedia storytelling to educate and encourage a more culturally aware, equitable and sustainable society. Founded in 2015 by a cohort of documentarians, media artists and folklorists, Los Herederos’ platform provides a unique link between artist, citizen, public, education and history. We adapt our artist-driven projects and archives to reflect the transformative nature of community and tradition. Central to our creative strategy is our interdisciplinary approach to ethnography. Our ethnographic practice is both observant of our surroundings and reflective of our own experiences as NYC natives and immigrant artists. As inheritors of the City, we look to capture the magic of the everyday to build infrastructure in our communities and name our stake in their cultural futures. @losherederosnyc
City Lore is grateful for generous support from: The Institute of Museum and Library Services, The New York State Council on the Arts with support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature,The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, The André and Elizabeth Kertész Foundation, La Vida Feliz Foundation, The Lily Auchincloss Foundation, and The Sherman Foundation.
