About
PEÑA LA PEPA...
Mamacita Social Aid Pleasure Club, Inc, and its home Peña La Pepa of New Orleans, is a (501c3) non-profit foundation dedicated to research, history, presentation and education of Spanish art and its roots in New Orleans. The foundation’s mission is to integrate into New Orleans Culture an appreciation and continuum of the art of Flamenco through performance and education programming by high quality Flamenco artists. For the first time at the New Orleans Jazz Museum celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month with acclaimed artists from this country. Maria Jose Salmeron (Pepa) is the Director and founder of this foundation to promote Spanish New Orleans in contemporary flamenco and Jazz. She invented how to present both cultures here in her home, New Orleans. Pepa started this union and has been in this process for more than a decade and a flamenco festival has been established with the introduction of New Orleans jazz with flamenco artists from Spain and jazz artists from New Orleans. Pepa is a native to both cultures. Just like the social aid and pleasure clubs of New Orleans are synonymous to the peñas flamencas of Andalucía, Spain. Our work as a true non-profit recognized locally, nationally and internationally is only worthy of having this title as we continue to educate, promote, preserve and highlight the truth of Spanish New Orleans history. Our work is more important than ever.
The work of Peña La Pepa...
The Chateau Flamenco Festival of New Orleans was the first ever in the State of Louisiana. History was made. For the first time ever, New Orleans Jazz, Brass Band music and Flamenco master artists from Spain; Alfonos Losa and Vanesa Coloma from Madrid connected both musical traditions. “The Fandango a La Luisiana” in the videos above demonstrated the transatlantic connection when the legendary Dr. Michael White played his clarinet to the emblematic Navajita Plateá “Noches de Bohemia” and Dr. White’s composition “Gypsy Secondline” to María Bermudez’s beautiful flamenco choreography. There is a beginning for everything, in this case an understanding of what has happened. Before now, this has not been understood. The connection between flamenco and New Orleans Jazz and Brass Band music is real.
Our work also enriches sharing of cultures by presenting master artists classes, musician demonstrations, historical presentations in the form of story telling and film to highlight the connections to our city’s diversity by combining and integrating art forms and disciplines across musical and racial boundaries. The foundation utilizes art and music as an instrument to engage communities of diverse backgrounds through virtuoso jazz musicians and flamenco artists from the USA and Spain to deliver the authenticity of flamenco. For the past decade the foundation has showcased the Spanish influence in New Orleans. The discussion as to why there are so many musical similarities shared by communities on the two sides of the Atlantic Ocean is irrefutable.
https://www.instagram.com/tv/Ckn2jTeLT1l/?igshid=NjQxMzA2Mjk=
Through this work, the history of Spain in Louisiana will be shown in a new light in the setting of the art of flamenco.
Above: Check out popular television segment interviews with Maria José Salmerón, President and Executive Director: WWL TV Morning Show and below, Televizion’s “The Gumbo Show.”
Televizión – https://fb.watch/i5bTiEbjr3/?mibextid=qC1gEa
Peña La Pepa presents flamenco tablao with premier artists in collaboration with the New Orleans Jazz Museum: “An Old Spanish Night in New Orleans”[/caption]
MISSION STATEMENT
