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Between persecution and appropriation, the viche is one of the protagonists of the Petronio Álvarez Pacific Music Festival, a strong voice of the resistance of the Afro-descendant populations in Colombia. In this Culture program dedicated to the 27th edition of the festival, we show you this liquor made from distilled sugar cane and its derivatives, invented by the enslaved Africans who arrived on the Colombian Pacific coast and which has accompanied the populations ever since. of this region.
We talked with Octavia Montaño, master of viche and legal representative of the Herencia Guapireña brand, and with the director of Petronio, Ana Copete, about the importance of this ancestral drink for Afro-Colombian communities, but also about its challenges today.
This year, Afro culture was also celebrated through its diaspora. Two international bands were invited: the Americans from the Hot 8 Brass Band and the Beninese from the Gangbé Brass Band. Founded in 1994 in Cotonou, this jubilant group fuses jazz with traditional Benin rhythms. It was the first time that the seven members of the Gangbé Brass Band had visited Colombia and they shared their surprise and excitement at finding a very familiar atmosphere at Petronio.
‘El Viaje de la marimba’ is the exciting documentary that opened the festival this year, which tells how this emblematic instrument of music from the Colombian Pacific connected and continues to connect the African and Latin American continents. Going through Senegal, the United States, Mexico, Ecuador and Colombia, this film full of archives tells how the balafon became a marimba crossing the Atlantic Ocean during the time of slavery. We asked his director, Marino Aguado, if he feels at the Petronio that international connection that he showed in his documentary.
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