Beat the Drum: East Los Meets West Los July 15, 2012

ARTScorpsLA/ACLA Emerging Producers presents Beat the Drum: East Los Meets West Los, a drum festival at the Ford Amphitheatre in Hollywood.  

Doors open at 6:00pm for picnicking, drum technique demonstrations from South Mexican and Central American traditions, live screen printing and painting, and dancing by the Capoeira Collective in the Ford Theatre Plaza.  

At 8:00pm, audience members will be ushered into the venue in a percussive, celebratory parade led by Aztec drumming.  The main event features performances by Atabey (traditional Puerto Rican bomba), East LA Taiko (Latin, Afro-Cuban, Japanese fusion) featuring drummer Fredo Ortiz of the Beastie Boys, and CAVA (bolero/tropical with primal taiko & cajon drumming).  

Joining East LA Taiko in a groundbreaking collaboration will be Lysa Flores (Alice Bag, El Vez, Jonathan Richman) who will merge her sultry vocals and feminist Chicana lyrics with the power of Japanese taiko drums.

Festival performers represent the universal fusion of traditional practice with artful new styles.  Also performing at the festival are DJ Reyes Rodriguez (world music) and Emcee Mayda Del Valle (poetry slam champion).  

“Beat the Drum is designed to capture the many rhythms of drum life as the LA experience,” says Festival Artistic Director Tricia Ward, “East and West traditions of jazz and rock drumming, bomba, taiko, and pan Latin, all together in celebration for one night, reveal the universality of the drumbeat as a rhythmic linkage to the human heartbeat.”  

All ages are welcome.

Official Website: http://fordtheatres.org/en/events/details/id/362