For almost 30 years, the Tradición Peruana Cultural Center has been promoting Afro-Peruvian culture and traditions through dance, music and art. Today, 16 months after moving from the Excelsior to its current location near 23rd and Bryant streets, the center is facing economic difficulties and is asking its community to help them survive.
“We’re in the need to survive until May or June when new funding will come through,” said co-founder Juan De Dios Soto, who is organizing an “emergency fundraiser” on Saturday, Feb. 22 to raise the $25,000 the center needs for the next few months.
The fundraiser, at 2815 23rd St., will feature the music of five bands including Inti Mystica, Rumba Flamenca, Familia Ramirez Reyes, Jaranón y Bochinche (the house band), plus a solo performance. The center will also sell Peruvian drinks, and showcase art and crafts from local artists. Local groups like Clínica Martín Baró will also be there.
Tradición Peruana hosts dance and music performances and its walls serve as an art gallery rotating the work of both local and international artists. Three exhibits are arriving at the center in the next couple months, all sponsored by the Peruvian consulate of San Francisco.
The center’s main focus is to recognize the contributions of Afro-Peruvian traditions of the coast.
“The idea came after I went to an event on Afro-Peruvians traditions that didn’t meet expectations,” said Soto, who is Afro-Peruvian. “I told myself, ‘I’d like there to be something that is done well and good.”
Soto, who moved to San Francisco from his native Lima in 1990 after reading about the Black Panthers, Angela Davis and the hippie movement, started the center with a group of Afro-Peruvian friends and his sister Lydia Soto, a choreographer and teacher and dancer of Afro-Peruvian rhythms.
Tradición Peruana, as of today, has 42 artists who regularly collaborate with the center, or have shown interest in doing so.
One of those artists is Manuel Suarez, a dance teacher of Cuban salsa, who’s been teaching at the space for nearly a year.
“Their work and their ideas are very good. I feel so happy that I can be part of this and support the center,” said Suarez. “We need more spaces like this in our communities.”
The fundraiser is a bit of a welcome change for the Peruvian center: From its founding in 1995 until it moved into its new space in late 2023, the center relied on third spaces to hold classes, art exhibits and after-school programs for children. Now, it can host its own.
In 2023, after receiving two grants — including a $50,000 from the San Francisco Arts Commission — Soto decided the time had come for Tradición Peruana to move out from its home office at Soto’s Excelsior District home and into its own space.
The center, Soto said, did not apply to many grants in the summer of 2023 — when applications usually are to be submitted — because they couldn’t afford a grant writer.
The two grants they received in 2023 covered rent and expenses through a portion of last year. And now they are awaiting word on grants they applied for in the summer of 2024.
The center also hosts workshops and meetings of Colectiva Libre, a collective of local artists fostering the work of historically marginalized communities by providing space and resources to create art.
“We’ve experienced a lot of displacement and a lack of spaces … there’s just not a lot of spaces where artists of color are particularly welcomed, or feel safe,” said Alejandra Rubio, a printmaker artist and teacher from the Mission District. “Tradición Peruana is one of those places where we feel safe and comfortable.”
One of the spaces that hosted the nonprofit for many years is the Mission Cultural Center for the Latino Arts, which executive director Martina Ayala described as an incubator for newer centers.
“Our relationship has been long standing. We’re very proud to see artists we’ve nourished are doing the work they’re doing,” said Ayala, whose center is also trying to raise money. “We love their work.”
The fundraiser will take place at Tradición Peruana Cultural Center at 2815 23rd St. on Saturday, Feb. 22 from 3 to 9:30 p.m.
I discovered this place only through a MAPP event. It is a shame that this article was not written a week earlier. I just saw it after the event.
https://www.perutpcc.org/
For those interested in donating to this fantastic nonprofit
Nice. They can use it. We do need more spaces like this.