Oakland ballet dancers Erin Yarborough and Eli Franklin in “Unión Fraternal”, 2000

Project Title: Unión Fraternal
Recipient Organization: The Oakland Ballet
Lead Artist: John Santos
Genre and Date Awarded: Performing Arts, June 2000
Premiered: November 10, 11, and 12, 2000 at the Paramount Theatre in Oakland, California

Composer and percussionist John Santos and choreographer Robert Moses collaborated with the Oakland Ballet to create a new work based on the Danzón tradition from Cuba. The piece was set on 12 dancers (six men and six women), and ran for 22 minutes. Santos's music was scored for six musicians--acoustic piano, acoustic bass, flute, violin, and two percussionists. Together the artists sought to evoke the restrained movements of the Danzón's European roots along with its underlying African themes. The performance's costumes, created by Mario Alonzo, and its dark, smoky lighting, designed by Jose Maria Francos, created the environment of a sophisticated club on the stage of the Paramount Theatre.

Unión Fraternal premiered to live music during the Ballet's 2000 season. Response was so strong that they remounted it for the 2001 season. Additionally, the Cincinnati Ballet performed it in April 2002. In May, 2002, John Santos won a San Francisco Bay Area Isadora Duncan Dance Award (Izzy) for best sound in a dance performance for Unión Fraternal .

In both its music and dance forms, the Danzón as recognized today originated in Matanzas, Cuba during the latter half of the 19 th century. Miguel Failde (1852-1921) is the acknowledged father of the musical form. The provenance of the style was found first in European classical music, especially in the brass, woodwinds, and strings of military bands and chamber ensembles, as well as in the line figures associated with court and country dancing--such as the Quadrille, Lanceros, Rigodon, Waltz, and Minuet. The most direct European influence, the Contradanza , was brought to Cuba with the migration of French and native refugees from Haiti during the revolution of the 1790s. The Danzón crystallized out of this confluent heritage into a distinctively Caribbean dance and musical identity.

John Santos's original score for Unión Fraternal explored the frontiers of the style, experimenting with and enriching its moods and textures with additional percussive instruments including the güiro, timbales, tumbadora (Congolese-derived drum) and the batá (Yoruba-derived drums) . Embarking on the project, he wrote, " Unión Fraternal poses a wonderful challenge to incorporate jazz and other contemporary and folkloric musical elements into the re-creation of the elegant, traditional atmosphere of the Danzón ," The ballet's title was based both on the name of an old, traditional social club in Havana and on Robert Moses's choreographic exploration of union and distance in relationships. The work developed gradually out of Santos's and Moses' active and vital exchange with one another and with the Ballet's dancers. Danzón master Roberto Borrell (also a Creative Work Fund grant recipient) conduced two workshops with the Ballet's dancers to introduce them to the traditional form of the dance as they embarked on this project.

John Santos had had extensive prior experience with the Danzón. The issues of slavery, racism, class, Creole culture, and economics that surround the history of the Danzón have long been part of his studies, repertoire, discussions, and lectures. He had composed, performed, and recorded danzones and derivatives for more than 20 years. In 1996, he toured Europe and the United States with Israel "Cachao" Lopez, an 86-year-old Cuban bassist and composer, considered one of the founding fathers of the modern Danzón . From 1976-1980, Santos directed La Orquesta Tipica Cienfuegos, the first group in the San Francisco Bay Area to perform traditional danzones; and in 1978 he published the extensive and highly acclaimed liner notes for the recording, The Cuban Danzón, its Ancestors and Descendants for the Smithsonian-Folkways label.

After dancing with ODC/San Francisco and other national companies, choreographer Robert Moses established his own company, Robert Moses' Kin, in 1995 as a vehicle for articulating an historically informed African American aesthetic. Kin handles subject matter based on social issues such as race, class, and gender, as well as exploring purely movement-based concerns. It has performed as part of the "Black Choreographers Moving Toward the 21 st Century," The Bay Area Dance Series, the Edge Festival, Dance Mosaic in Palo Alto, and as part of San Francisco Opera and San Francisco Jazz Festival celebrations. Although Moses is known primarily as a modern dance choreographer, he previously had collaborated with, or choreographed for ballet works with Alonzo King, Larry Pech, and Julia Adams.

Ronn Guidi, an Oakland native and student of Raoul Pause founded the Oakland Ballet in 1965. Under his leadership, the Ballet was known for its superb re-creations of works of Diaghilev-era ballets along with a variety of works by outstanding American choreographers. It has commissioned work by some of the Bay Area's most innovative contemporary choreographers. Now under the artistic leadership of Karen Brown, it sustains a commitment to a diverse repertoire and to fostering new works. In the words of the Ballet's then development Renee Heider, Ballet is an art form that has historically, in large measure, ignored people of color--audience, dancers, choreographers, staffs, and boards. One of Oakland Ballet's primary objectives is to right this omission." Importantly, this ballet, "added a new voice to the standard repertoire."

John Santos

John Santos is a percussionist, producer, composer, historian, writer, vocalist and instructor of Caribbean and Jazz musical forms.

Partial Discography (as a producer* and performer)

• *Brazos Abiertos, John Santos and Machete, Machete Records (2003)
• *SF Bay, John Santos and Machete, Machete Records (2002) GRAMMY Nominee
• *Tribute to the Masters, John Santos and Machete, Ubiquity (2000)
• *La Mar, John Santos and Omar Sosa (2000)
• *Machetazo, John Santos and the Machete Ensemble, Bembé (1998)
• Nfumbe, John Santos and Omar Sosa, Price Club (1998)
• Pound for Pound, Charlie Hunter Quartet, Blue Note (1998)
• Music of Paul Misraki, Raquel Bitton (1998)
• *Flores, Conjunto Cespedes, Xenophile (1997)
• *Hacia el Amor, Coro Folklórico Kindembo, Xenophile, with Francisco Aguabella (1996)
• Bird Goes Latin, Jamey Aebersold (1996)
• I Surrender, Barbara Higbie, Slow Baby (1996)
• From Africa to Camaguey, Los Terry/Cuba, Round World (1996)
• *Tierra Adentro, Claudia Gomez, Xenophile (1996)
• Flying South, Pete Escovedo Orchestra, Concord (1996)
• *Machete, John Santos and the Machete Ensemble, Xenophile, with Cachao and Chocolate (1995)

Selected Performance Highlights

• San Jose Jazz Festival, with Nestor Torres, San Jose, California (2003)
• West Coast Trou, with Omar Sosa (2003)
• University of Wisconsin at Madison Film and Book Festival, Machete Ensemble, National Poetry Unit (2003)
• Chicago World Music Festival, John Santos and the Machete Ensemble (1999)
• American Museum of Natural History (New York City), John Santos and the Machete Ensemble (1999)
• San Francisco Jazz Festival, Machete Ensemble (1999)
• Virgin Islands and East Coast Tour with Omar Sosa (1999)
• Havana International Jazz Festival, John Santos and the Machete Ensemble (1997)
• Black and White Ball, John Santos and the Machete Ensemble, San Francisco, California (1997)
• Stanford Jazz Series, John Santos and the Machete Ensemble (1997)
• Sao Paulo International Music Exposition, Brazil (1997)
• San Francisco Jazz Festival with Omar Sosa and Charlie Hunter (1997)
• Monterey Jazz Festival, with Charlie Hunter, Monterey, California (1997)
• Machete Ensemble East Coast Tour (1996)
• Lao Schifrin with Carnegie Hall Jazz Band, Monterey Jazz Festival, Monterey, California (1996)
• Eddie Palmieri, Yoshi's, Oakland, California (1996)
• Cachao y su Orquesta, European and United States tour (1995)
• Irakere West, San Francisco (1995)

Selected Event Productions as Artistic Director/Producer

• Tribute to Orestes Vilató, San Francisco Jazz Festival, with Machete, Fajardo, Felo Barrio, and Nelson Gonzales, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theatre (2000)
• Tribute to Armando Peraza, San Francisco Jazz Festival, with Al McKibbon and Emil Richards, Masonic Auditorium (1995)
• Jazz Antillana for Odunde Odunde Festival, Machete Ensemble, Center for the Arts Theater, San Francisco (1994)
• The Drum is the Heartbeat, Zellerbach Theater, University of California, Berkeley, with A. Peraza, Francisco Aguabella, Roberto Borrell, Bobi Cespedes, and Machete (1993)
• The Evolution of Afro-Cuban Music, I & II, San Francisco Jazz Festival at Davies Symphony Hall and Bimbo's, with Cachao, Chocolate, A Peraza, Santana, Wilfredo de los Reyes, Orestes Vilató, Machete Ensemble, and Coro Folklórico Kindembo (1989, 1990)
• Carnaval San Francisco, Co-producer (1980)
• The Chronological History of Salsa, Victoria Theater, San Francisco (1980)

Selected Awards and Honors

• Commission by Brava! for Women in the Arts to compose original score for Watsonville by Cherrie Moraga (1996)
• Indie Award, Presented by NARAS (National Association of Independent Record Distributors) for production of Una Sola Casa by Conjunto Céspedes (1994)
• Commission, Oberlin Dance Collective, to compose and premiere Under the Jaguar Sun , Yerba Buena Gardens Theater, San Francisco, California
• 1994 Artistic Community Service Award, Mission Economic and Cultural Association, San Francisco, California (1992 )
• San Francisco Weekly "Wammy Award" for Machete Ensemble (1992)
• Artist's Fellowship, California Arts Council (1991)
• Commission by the National Performance Network and the Asociación de Músicos Latino Americanos to compose and premiere Caribeño Suite at the Mellon Jazz Festival, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1991)
• New Langton Arts and Festival 2000 grants for From Here to There , project with visual artist Kate Connell.

Publications

• Author, Afro-Cuban Jazz/Ancestral Rhythm , for Jazz in the City's "Threads of Jazz" series, 1996
• Consultant to Salsa Guidebook by Rebeca Mauleón.

Films and Music Videos

• Routes of Rhythm , (consultant), three-part documentary series by Les Blank, featuring Harry Belafonte (1986)
• La Familia Latina, Tito Puente/Sheila E. Special with Pete Escovedo Orchestra (1986)
• Sworn to the Drum, (consultant), documentary about Francisco Aguabella by Les Blank (1985)

Robert Moses

Choreographer Robert Moses has been part of the Bay Area dance community since 1985, performing his own work and as a featured member of ODC/San Francisco. He established Robert Moses' Kin, in 1995 as a vehicle for articulating a historically informed African American aesthetic. Since its founding, Robert Moses' Kin has performed as part of "Black Choreographers Moving Toward the 21 st Century," the 1996 Bay Area Dance Series, the 1997 Edge Festival, Dance Mosaic in Palo Alto, the 1993, 1994, 1995, and 1997 Summerfest Dance Festivals in San Francisco, 1998 Men Dancing, and as part of the 1997 San Francisco Opera's Gala Re-opening weekend. In conjunction with the 1997 San Francisco Jazz Festival, the company was presented by TransAmerica's Noontime Performance Series; and, in 1996, it toured to Texas to be presented by Dance Umbrella, Austin. The company also has performed on tour in Houston, Texas, and to San Diego, Los Angeles, and Sacramento, California.

In addition to creating numerous original works for Kin, Robert Moses' choreography had appeared as part of the Los Angeles Prime Moves Festival, sponsored by L.A.C.E., the 1995 Golden Ring Awards, the 1995 New Conservatory Theater production of Women's Prison Christmas , the short film God is Lonely , and the plays Homer G and the Rhapsodies and Servant of the People, both of which were presented at the Lorraine Hansberry Theater in San Francisco. Among many venues across the United States, his work was seen at the Japan American Theatre as part of the 1984 Olympic Arts Festival.

A respected teacher, Mr. Moses is on the faculty of Stanford University. He has danced in Twyla Tharp Dance, American Ballet Theatre, and Long Beach Ballet, and has performed with other major companies and in numerous film, video, and television productions

Robert Moses was awarded the 1998 Goldie Award for Dance by the San Francisco Bay Guardian and the 1998 Black Box Award for Choreography by the San Francisco Weekly .