Story by Adrian Cabreja
Photo: QPHOTONYC - GaGa P'al Pueblo is an Afro-Dominican cultural arts organization seeking to promote traditional and folkloric Dominican music and dance.
During these last weeks of summer, there is no time to be wasted.
Soon enough, the full-time routines of school and work will beckon, but in the meantime, there is fun, and even a bit of cultural education, to be found on any given Sunday at the Anne E. Loftus Playground in Fort Tryon Park.
Drums, clarinets, horns and a medley of instruments can be heard from deep within the playground as GaGa P’al Pueblo, an Afro-Dominican cultural arts organization seeking to promote traditional and folkloric Dominican music and dance, comes together to be heard – and to help spread the word about Palos music.
“We feel like our organization is very important here in the Dominican community. Many American-Dominicans are forgetting their basic Afro-Dominican culture and others have forgotten the culture completely,” said Genarao Ozuna, a representative of the organization.
Palos is widely considered by musicologists and lovers of Afro-Caribbean music the true Dominican rural roots music and an important foundational genre.
Read more: Palos: Music at its roots
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