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Lydia Pérez at the Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program Festival, 2005

SubjectPortrait of Lydia Pérez (Puerto Rican)

Date2005 June 19

Mediumborn digital photography

ClassificationsGraphics

Credit LineConnecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collections

CopyrightIn Copyright

Object number2015.196.548.18

DescriptionPhotograph of Lydia Pérez, a Puerto Rican Bomba dancer, performing at the Connecticut Culturual Heritage Arts Program's Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program Festival on June 19, 2005.

NotesSubject Note: The Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program held an all-day program showcase on June 19, 2005, at the Portuguese Club in Newington. Many of the artists involved in the program over the years demonstrated, displayed, and performed their art work for a public audience. Featured performing artists in the festival included Joao Monteiro, Cape Verdean accordion player and singer (Pawtucket, RI); Raquel Figueiredo and Warm Heart, Cape Verdean dancers (Waterbury, CT); Lydia Perez, Puerto Rican bomba dancer (Providence, RI); Bob Livingston, Square Dance and Quadrille caller (Middletown, CT); Rosaire LeHoux, Quebecois fiddler (Willimantic, CT); Daniel Boucher, Franco-American fiddler (Bristol, CT); Nancy Lemme, Franco-American fiddler (West Warwick, RI); Danzas Peruanas, Peruvian dance group (Hartford, CT); Raouf Mama, African storyteller (Willimantic, CT); Joao dos Santos, Portuguese fandango dancer (Newington, CT); Jason Roseman, Trinidad steel pan maker and player (Pawtucket, RI); Kelvin Griffith, Trinidad steel pan maker and player (East Hartford, CT); Somaly and Khandarith Hay, Cambodian singer and dancer (Waterford, CT); David Ayriyan, Armenian kamanche player (Johnston, RI); Will Hare, Irish flute player (Storrs, CT); Lao Narthasin, Laotian dance group (New Britain, CT); and the Second Baptist Male Chorus, African-American gospel quartet (New Britain, CT).

Featured visual artists included Marek Czarnecki, Polish iconographer (Meriden, CT); Eldrid Arntzen, Norwegian rosemaler (Watertown, CT); William Cumpiano, Puerto Rican luthier (Easthampton, MA); Graciela Quiñones Rodríguez, Puerto Rican cuatro maker (East Hartford, CT); and Blia and Pa Koua Vang, Hmong needlework and musical instruments (Providence, RI).

The festival was supported by United Arts 2005 through the Greater Hartford Arts Council, the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, and the Institute for Community Research. The Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program is funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, the Institute for Community Research, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism.

Biographical Note: Lydia Pérez has been a teacher in the Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program in 1999-2000 to student Maria Perez Colon, and Menen Osorio in 1998-1999, both in Puerto Rican bomba dance. Lydia has been an apprentice in the program three times: with mentor Angel Sanchez Ortiz in vejigante making in 2006-2007, and 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 with mentor Carlos Santiago Arroyo in santos carving. Lydia is a longtime arts activist and practitioner of Puerto Rican bomba and plena dance and music with her family joining her in the group Yoruba II. She has developed the Puerto Rican Institute for Arts and Advocacy, an organization for education, performance, and advocacy for Puerto Rican arts and culture, and gives performances and teachings all over New England.

Subject Note: The Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program is a CCHAP initiative since 1997 that fosters the sharing of community-based traditional (folk) artistic skills through the apprenticeship learning model of regular, intensive, one-on-one teaching by a skilled mentor artist to a student/apprentice. The program pairs master artists from Rhode Island, Massachusetts, or Connecticut with apprentices from one of the other states, as a way to knit together members of the same community or group across state lines. Teaching and learning traditional arts help to sustain cultural expressions that are central to a community, while also strengthening festivals, arts activities and events when master/apprentice artists perform or demonstrate results of their cooperative learning to public audiences. The Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program at the Connecticut Historical Society manages the program in collaboration with the Folk Arts Program at the Massachusetts Cultural Council and independent folklorist Winifred Lambrecht who has a deep knowledge of the folk arts landscape of Rhode Island. Primary funding for the program comes from the National Endowment for the Arts, with support also from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts, the Institute for Community Research, and the Connecticut Historical Society.

Additional materials exist in the CCHAP archive for this event and this artist.

Cataloging Note: This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services MA-245929-OMS-20.

Status

Not on view