Duwamish River Festival – Duwamish Waterway Park, Seattle – August 20, 2016
A community festival that includes performances of various cultural groups? No brainer for me, I’m there. Especially if there’s an environmental injustice angle, as there is here; Seattle’s South Park neighborhood adjoins the Duwamish Waterway, a Superfund site. I sure hope I got the spelling right for the Kalpulli group – I copied from the program, but have seen a few other variants on the web. Banda Vagos, somewhat of a family thingy, was the heavy hitter in the entertainment department. The banda genre is a Mexican cultural melange mashup (the brass band aspect is a German/Austrian influence) with propulsive high energy, which these guys had in spades! With nine separate portraits, of a dozen players (got ’em all!) I’m just posting the composite here.
Carlos Barajas
Rafaela Luna-Pizano
Banda Vagos