Presented in partnership with the 2015 Smithsonian Folklife Festival’s Perú: Pachamama program, the Queens Museum invites families to celebrate the culture of Peru with hands-on artmaking workshops, theater presentation, and interactive dance performances.

Free & Open to All!

1:30-3pm: Aymart Recycled Plasti-Collage Workshop for All Ages

Peruvian/American artist Aymar Ccopacatty began applying textile techniques learned from his native Aymara grandmother to plastic refuse around 2006 in the context of conceptual art. The artist has since pursued an interest in sharing modified Textile and Plasti-Collage techniques with local communities both in Peru and the United States. The Plastic Project seeks to educate, inspire and inform local people about alternative uses of plastic refuse. In actively learning different techniques of recycling plastic, people will never look at the material in the same way. We’ll begin to save the plastic rather than throwing it everywhere, creating a perceived value. The Plasti-Collage workshop is for all ages and involves a simple process of layering colored plastic with an acrylic gel medium. For younger children pre-cut plastic shapes inspired from Andean mythology. Adults will be able to cut their own plastic shapes for making a simple work of art from their own inspirations.

3:00pm: Abya Yala Arte y Cultura presents "We Still Are”

A collective theater performance piece based on Jose Maria Arguedas’s poem "A Nuestro Padre Creador Tupac Amaru”. Using a combination of live music, theater, poetry and dance, characters meet, interact and share their individual and collective stories as immigrants, presenting the struggles and contradictions that they must face day to day. Through singing, playing autochthonous musical instruments, dancing and with the spoken word, we will share our experiences, what we think and how we feel. Maybe then we may be able to confront our own feelings – the eternal longing and uncertainty we face when asking ourselves: Who are we? Why did we leave? Why did we stay? Will we return…

AbyaYala Arte & Cultura is a 501(c) (3) non-profit cultural organization that presents, promotes and celebrates the cultural identity of the native communities of Latin America focusing on the Andean region and the diffusion of its living, thriving culture. Using art as a catalyst, Abya Yala’s programs help foster cultural exchange and affirm the power of art to transcend issues of race, ethnicity, class, gender and age. For more info contact: email: abyaarts@gmail.com

4-430pm: Mosaicos Andinos Dance Performance

Founded in 2002 in Queens, Mosaicos Andinos is a premier Peruvian dance company that was formed to represent the richness, tradition and beauty of this Andean country. The organizations main mission is to preserve ancestral dance traditions and teach the new generation that strength and soul of various Peruvian dances that otherwise would be forgotten.

The dances that are performed represent the highlands, the coast and the tropica regions of Peru. The dance company is comprised of 40 acitive dancers of all ages.  Mosaicos Andinos strives to innovate Peruvian folklore and demonstrate the various facets of the innate beauty of Andean dance. The will be performing La Marinera Limeña and the Huayrsh Moderno both followed by an interactive dance workshop.