An American in Lima

El Híjo and I accompanied El Fotógrafo to last night’s opening of Noche de Arte, in San Isidro.

Main hall at Noche de Arte, 2009, Friday, Oct. 23

 The art show was held in an enormous gallery owned by a Peruvian bank, and one of the amusing things about it was how the bank stayed open to [...]

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Atlantic City, by Jorge Vera

El Fotografo’s photographs will be among the artworks for sale at Noche de Arte 2009, which opens tonight in San Isidro (BBVA – Banco Continental, Ave. Republica de Panama 3055), from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m.
Proceeds from the three-day event benefit the Anne Sullivan Center, the Carrion Hospital Burn Unit and other institutions and [...]

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My bandmates The Three Jacks will be rocking downtown Miami’s Gusman Center tonight to raise funds for Jackson Memorial Hospital.
Remaining tickets are on sale for $15 each, $10 for students.
Sharing the stage will be champion step dancers from the Breffni Academy of Irish Dance. Those of you who saw The Three Jacks in Lima this past May [...]

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Last week I dropped in on a very cool Finnish design exhibit being hosted at Lima’s ICPNA center. “Northern Stars” showcases more than 100 years of innovative design from Finnish designers and design firms such as Marimekko, Arabia, Nokia and Metso.
El Híjo and I were hoping to catch sight of some Moomintrolls, the eccentric woodland characters invented [...]

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Cynthia Paniagua (R) in Chincha (photo: Florencia Castello)

Peruvian culture will get a major public-awareness boost tonight when New York PBS stations broadcast the awarding-winning documentary Soy Andina. (Sept. 10, 10 p.m.; check local listings. The film airs throughout the country starting Oct. 11.)
Soy Andina is one of eight documentary films selected for the new season of Latin [...]

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Water Is the Source of Life (Jorge Vera 2009)

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Just a bit of exaggeration in that headline.
But I’m entitled to gloat about the success of my band last weekend at Auditorio Santa Ursula, in San Isidro. We had two fabulous concerts, Friday and Saturday nights (May 15 & 16), and got loads of people to contribute money to build a hospital in Pisco. Plus [...]

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Come out for a rousing night of Celtic rock, Irish step dancing and storytelling in Lima on Fri., May 15, and Sat., May 16, when my band The Three Jacks plays two benefit concerts for victims of the ‘07 Peru earthquake.  

I promise it will be an excellent time because (1) the musicians and dancers are world-class; (2) [...]

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The other day in a post about art about the Shining Path years, I included an unidentified photograph of a Peruvian retablo created by, it turns out, master artisan Nicario Jiménez Quispe.
Jiménez was born in Ayacucho, the historic center of indigenous struggle in Peru and the locus of Shining Path conflict, and now lives in the [...]

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A scene from the Spanish-Peruvian movie “The Milk Of Sorrow” by director Claudia Llosa in this photo released by the Berlinale film festival. (Berlinale via Associated Press)

Congratulations to Peruvian-born director Claudia Llosa, whose drama The Milk of Sorrow (La Teta Asustada) captured the Golden Bear for best film at the Berlin film festival last week.
I [...]

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He was one of my favorite novelists, a person who wrote bracingly honest books about being male, being American, being human.
Now El Fotografo walks into my office and tells me John Updike is dead. Of lung cancer. I had no idea he smoked.
The obituaries are appearing now online, and I’ve snagged one below from Reuters.
I [...]

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tourism company in Cusco is sponsoring an intriguing photo project to highlight indigenous beauty and women’s growing influence in South America. No prize money or payment is involved, but chosen photographers have their projects featured in a select Web-based gallery.

The Inca Princess Photo Project invites professional photographers to submit ideas for “spectacular open-theme material celebrating the beauty and unique nature of South American women.”

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I was so absorbed by the APEC brouhaha last month I missed the news that the world’s newest superhero hails from Lima.

Santiago is a viewer-created superhero character who stars in four micro-episodes in Sprint’s online series Heroes: Destiny. 
More than one million people participated in the online series by selecting attributes for a male and a [...]

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Who is Peruvian? Who is Andean?
 
Can a Peruvian dancer who’s made a new life in New York City return after 15 years to her remote hometown in the Andes to reclaim her heritage?
Can a young American of mixed Peruvian and Puerto Rican heritage find her “inner Andina” (as I like to call it) by studying folkloric dance techniques in towns throughout [...]

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