Project Title: Patakin
Recipient Organization: OZi Ochun Cultural Center
Lead Artist: Susana Arenas Pedroso
Genre and Date Awarded: Traditional Arts, June 2003
To Be Completed: September 2004

Based on the patakin, or parable, tradition of the Yoruba/Lukumi religion, Patakin will bring Afro-Cuban storytelling to life through dance, music, and spoken word. Dancer and choreographer Susana Arenas Pedroso will collaborate with master bata drummer Michael Spiro, writer Joyce Thompson, director Tania Llambelis, and the Oñi Ochun Cultural Center, which was established in 1994 to preserve Afro-Caribbean culture and religion through education, and documentation.

A patakin is much like an Aesop’s fable. Hundreds of patakines have descended from Africa to Cuba and now to the United States. They tell the stories of the Orishas, gods and goddesses of the Lukumi tradition. The telling itself is grounded in the ritualized practice of divination, where a specific patakin is called upon to explain a nuance of behavior to the individual seeking advice.

This project seeks to combine this traditional, ritual-based art form with Western theater, expanding the patakin’s role as “giving of advice” to an individual within the practice of a religion to the context of addressing a general audience in a theater. Built around eight of the parables, Patakin will express basic human values, such as tolerance, respect for ancestors and elders, and the consequences of vanity. Susana Arenas Pedroso writes, “We need the lessons of Patakin to help us live fulfilling lives in a modern world we see becoming ever more violent and disassociated from its natural roots.”

All three of the key artists are unusually well suited to the nuances of this project as they are initiated priests of the Lukumi tradition. Susana Arenas Pedroso grew up in Cuba, moving to the United States in 1998, and quickly establishing herself as a leading teacher and performer of Caribbean dance. Her parents and grandparents were all initiated Lukumi priests and she grew up with the patakines, ritualized dances, songs, and collective drum calls for each Orisha. In Cuba, the government dubbed religion-based art forms as “folkloric” and permitted their public display. Susana Arenas Pedroso was able to study with the great folkloric dancers of Cuba. She danced professionally in Cuba with traditional, popular, and experimental companies, becoming female soloist with Raices Profundas, Cuba’s premiere folkloric company.

Oakland’s Oñi Ochun Cultural Center was established in 1994 to preserve Afro-Caribbean culture and religion through education, and documentation of past and present events and practices; and to promote the creative expressions of people descended from Africa and the Caribbean. It currently hosts classes in the dances and song cycles of the Lukumi tradition, as well as classes in the Caribbean tradition of Spiritism as a means of healing and personal growth. The Center strives to make Afro-Caribbean culture and history accessible to a wider community.

Susana Arenas Pedroso

Cuban-born dancer and choreographer Susana Arenas Pedroso trained extensively in her native city of Havana before settling in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1998. In Cuba, upon completion of a rigorous course of dance training at two highly respected institutions—La Casa de la Cultura of Mantanzas and the Conjunto Folklorico Nacional of Havana—Ms. Pedroso began to dance professionally with several traditional, experimental, and popular dance companies, including Alafia Ire, Oche Olorum, and Tierra Virgen. Subsequently, Ms. Pedroso was invited to join the country’s premiere Folkloric dance company, Raices Profundus, where she rapidly ascended to the position of female soloist. After seven years of performing in venues throughout the island, Ms. Pedroso was able to establish herself as one of the company’s finest young talents under the tutelage of renowned company director Juan de Dios Ramos. In addition to her demanding dance career, between 1993 and 1995, Ms. Pedroso acted in two feature-length, internationally distributed films—Tropicola, directed by Steve Fagin, and El Blanco de los Espejuelos, an international co-production.

Since settling in the Bay Area, Ms. Pedroso has maintained a rigorous schedule of teaching and performing. She has taught dance workshops throughout the United States and has been a guest faculty member for three consecutive summers at Humboldt State University. She teaches ongoing classes at San Francisco’s Dance Mission. She also has performed regularly with various Cuban artists in the Bay Area. Accomplishments include:

Recent Affiliations

• Founder, Sandunga Cabaña, dance company dedicated to popular idioms of Cuban Dance, 2001
• Touring Western United States with Omo Oddara, an all-star line-up of Cuban artists, organized by First Day Project, Minnesota, 2001
• Olorun, folkloric group founded by Pedroso featured in San Francisco Ethnic Dance Company and People Like Me (World Arts West), 2000
• Actor, West Side Story, produced by The Mountain Play, 1999
• Artistic director, choreographer, principal dancer, Omo Ache, folkloric company founded by Carlos Aldama, 1999
• Founded the folkloric group Obini, 1998

Michael Spiro

Michael Spiro is an internationally recognized percussionist, recording artist, and educator, known for his work in the Latin music field. He has performed on hundreds of records, co-produced several instructional videos for Warner Brothers Publications (featuring such renowned artists as David Garibaldi, Changuito, Giovanni Hidalgo, and Ignacio Berroa), and produced seminal recordings in the Latin music genre, including Orquesta Batachanga, Group Bata-Ketu, and Grupo Ilu-AZa. He has recorded and performed with a wide array of artists—from Bobby McFerrin to Grace Slick and McCoy Tyner.

In addition to academic studies in Latin America and ethnomusicology at the University of California and University of Washington, for seven years he was an apprentice to Francisco Aguabella, a relationship that continues today. He has traveled and studied with artists throughout Latin America--in Cuba annually since 1984. Michael Spiro currently resides in San Francisco, but is a guest faculty member at several universities throughout the country, and tours world-wide with his percussion trio Talking Drums, which he co-leads with David Garibaldi and Jesus Diaz.

Tania Llambelis

is a producer, director, performance artist, arts educator and cultural activist. She is a graduate of Wesleyan University where she studied dance and theater. Ms. Llambelis has taught theater and dance at various community centers, after school programs and summer camps through the City of Oakland’s Park and Recreation Department. Her students have ranged from children, to youth, to formerly incarcerated adults in recovery from drug addiction, and also elders. Currently, she is an instructor with the San Francisco Arts Education Project.

Ms. Llambelis has performed in various Bay Area venues including: the San Francisco Carnaval Parade, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the Brava Theatre Center, El Teatro de la Esperanza, The Marsh, Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, San Francisco State University and Stanford University. In addition, she has performed at the Nuyorican Poets Café in New York City and also at several venues in Salvador Brazil.

Joyce Thompson

With ten commercial and small press books to her credit, Joyce Thompson is an accomplished writer with a deep sense of story. In addition to her widely translated fiction, Thompson has written for stage and screen, acted in community theater and taught creative writing at all levels, from elementary to graduate school. Her spiritual memoir, Sailing My Shoe ToTimbuktu (Harper San Francisco, 2003) chronicles her journey to the Lucumi tradition. She is a priest of Obatala, initiated in 2002, and lives in Oakland, California.