IgniVox is honored to collaborate with an artist of Irka Mateo’s caliber
as we produce a series of Dominican folkloric & ceremonial events.

2nd Annual Dominican Roots Music Celebration 2018

FREE OUTDOOR CELEBRATION

Friday | July 27 | 2018 | 4-7pm
Inwood Hill Park | The Peninsula | 218 St & Indian Rd entrance
‘A’ train to Inwood/207th stop | 7 min walk

Presented by IgniVox Productions & Irka Mateo

Afro-Indigenous Ceremonies & Folk Music from the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico & Haiti

CELEBRATION SCHEDULE:

4:00 Opening Indigenous Ceremony
4:20 Irka Mateo Folkloric Quartet Performance
5:10 Procession & Offerings Ceremony at Spuyten Duyvil Creek
6:00 BombaYo Performance
6:30 Gaga pa’l Pueblo Performance
7:00 Celebration Closing

Join IgniVox Productions for our second Annual “Dominican Roots Music Celebration“ with performances by Dominican singer-songwriter, folklorist “Irka Mateo & The Folkloric Quartet“, the Dominican-Haitian drum group “Gaga Pa’l Pueblo“ and Puerto Rican Drum group “BombaYo”! This free celebration will take place on Friday July 27, 2018 from 4pm to 7pm at the Peninsula at 218 St. & Indian Road entrance. The Peninsula is a beautiful sacred grove on the northernmost tip of Manhattan where we will celebrate the first fruits of the harvest season.

Dominican Roots Music Celebration is produced by IgniVox Productions in collaboration with the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, New York Department of Cultural Affairs, Northern Manhattan Art Alliance, Make Music New York and Partnership for Parks Inwood Hill through Columbia University.

Dominican Roots Music Celebration is a continuation of IgniVox/Irka Mateo’s “Offerings and Songs to the Solstice Sun“ which took place last year at Fort Tryon Park.

IgniVox Productions & IRKA MATEO, ‘Goddess of the Hurricane,’ Neo-Dominican singer / songwriter and​ folklorist produced a Taino Summer Solstice ceremonial event Offerings and Songs to the Solstice Sun this past June, featuring performances, offering, and a Dominican accordion folk music concert incorporating Indigenous, African and European instruments and music traditions.

Offerings and Songs to the Solstice Sun​ is produced by ​IgniVox Productions ​with many thanks to Make Music New York, New York Department of Cultural Affairs, Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.

  

 

  

 

  

 

More Info

Beginning with a procession performance, a free recreation of the St. John the Baptist Popular Religion Celebrations and the Taino indigenous solstice myth, using character masks, will lead to an altar created to honor the Taino chiefs and St. John the Baptist and Spiritual leader Liborio Mateo. A traditional call and response song will accompany the procession showcasing Afro-Dominican drums. Participants can bring offerings of fruits, sweets and peanuts to place at the altar. Irka will end the procession with an indigenous call of the four directions and a ritual performance depicting the creation of a Veve [“vay-vay”], a Taino solstice ritual design, drawn on the ground with strewn cornmeal and showcasing Taino drums. Irka and her Folk Quartet and Guests will end this celebration with a lively concert showcasing accordion folk music played in the southwest of the island to worship St John the Baptist and the sun in celebration of the energy and life it gives to all of us day after day.

  

 

Mateo studied thirteen Dominican musical folkloric traditions by traveling throughout the rural countryside for more than a decade. Her extensive research was recognized, honored and supported by The Grammy Foundation. “We are bringing the history of our people through music to be passed from generation to generation,” she states. “There is a large Dominican population of musicians who are interested in following the folklore, as I did, when I was their age. Now, perhaps, a fourth generation of people who go to the fields, who hear the rhythms that we are playing, for them also incorporate it now with electronic music and jazz.” Mateo continues to inspire fellow Dominican and New York based musicians and captivates audience members with her Dominican performances and is excited to incorporate the audience members of Offerings and Songs to the Solstice Sun on June 21st!