Review of Festival de la Hispanidad 2014 and Fusion Jonda

3rd Edition of Festival de la Hispanidad 2014

Last week we invited our readers to the Festival de la Hispanidad 2014. We had the opportunity to go to the first day of the event and made the following observations:

• If you are interested in crafts,  go during the early afternoon. When we got there at 7:30 p.m. there was enough food and music, but many artisan shops were already closed.
• That didn’t apply to the artisans from the Dominican Republic.  They were up until the last minute and had a huge party in their station.  They were dancing merengue from Johnny Ventura and Juan Luis Guerra as if there was no tomorrow.
• The performers in the Festival de la Hispanidad 2014 edition were mostly groups from the University of Puerto Rico Arts Program.

1:00 pm Los Pleneros de la Cresta
2:00 pm Taller de Jazz UPR
3:00 pm Conjunto de Metales UPR
4:00 pm Acto Protocolar
5:00 pm UPR Dance Team
5:15 pm Banda Sinfónica UPR
7:00 pm Tuna Bardos UPR

All these groups are fairly good. For example, Tuba Bardos has won about 50 prizes at the local and international level.

About Fusion Jonda’s Performance

The main goal of our visit was to watch Fusion Jonda and we weren’t disappointed.  As I listened to this band, I thought about the stories of Puerto Ricans who leave Puerto Rico for any particular reason. Well, I have to say that the best are staying. These young professionals are making top of the line work, experimenting and producing a fusion of rhythms that I know will be heard soon in the great stages of world music. Songs we used to like but did not know how to dance now make sense, as the interpretation of Fusion Jonda of one of the best known songs by the Gypsy Kings, Djobi Djoba. Now you can dance it like salsa! These were my thoughts, as I listened to the band:

1. Musicians, singers and dancers performed to perfection. These guys know what they are doing.
2. All songs are cheerful and as you listen you find yourself continuously surprised at the changes in rhythms and genres.
3. In this band everyone is gorgeous, even the guy with the dreadlocks and the madurito man who was playing the conga.
4. The flamenco dancer whose last name was Muñiz, danced so well that a couple of Spanish tourists who were next to me were nodding and looking perplexed, with their mouths open, as they watched the talented dancer. They were dancing from the moment the show started to the end. This is something that makes us happy, because the main objective of Puerto Rico is Music! is to exalt Puerto Rico’s musical talent as a touristic asset.

Well done, guys.

Here are some videos from Fusion Jonda’s performance:

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A unique band performing at the Festival de la Hispanidad 2014
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