Durante los cuatro años y medio de trayectoria de la Tertulia Cultural Hispana -TCH-, diferentes medios de comunicación han difundido la gestión cultural que se viene realizando con la participación de miembros de la comunidad hispana de la Florida Central.
Lo que dicen los medios
El Sentinel, Orlando, Florida
Tertulia cumpleañera
Una iniciativa cultural en Orlando cumple 3 años
Por Walter Pacheco El Sentinel 5 de marzo de 2005
Hace tres años, el director de la emisora de radio Buena Nueva FM, Miguel Angel Pérez, sembró una semilla que con el tiempo floreció en una iniciativa cultural con un alcance tan largo como las ramas de un árbol.
Los integrantes de la Tertulia Cultural Hispana no solo celebran el martes 8 de marzo un nuevo aniversario del grupo cultural que incluye actividades como un club de libros, sino que a través de una nueva alianza con el Hispanic Theatre Project inician el club de teatro en español, y en abril próximo lanzaran el de poesía.
"Estamos respondiendo a lo que la gente pide y entre todo, queremos construir un gran universo en español", dijo Perez. "Es una gestión cultural".
Es mas, el peruano Carlos Cueto pronto regresa a su patria y tiene en proyecto abrir el primer capítulo de la tertulia en Lima.
"Quiero desarrollar la tertulia en Lima en conjunto con la de Orlando", dijo Cueto. "Es una manera de aprender algo de todos los países latinoamericanos".
La fuerza y permanencia de la tertulia es impresionante, pese a que su nacimiento en Orlando fue bien humilde.
En 2002, Pérez y alrededor de otras 15 personas dieron inicio a un club de libros que se reunia dos veces al mes en la libreria Borders en Winter Park para hablar de escritores latinos y los libros que estos escriben.
Hoy dia, un promedio de 35 integrantes, entre los que hay venezolanos, argentinos, puertorriquenos, colombianos y cubanos, asisten a las reuniones de la Tertulia, cuyos temas incluyen arte, literatura, cine, y noticias latinas en Orlando y en sus paises de origen. A veces hay presentaciones y entrevistas con autores latinos.
Los temas del encuentro de la semana pasada en el Centro Empresarial Disney en Orlando incluyeron una presentacion en DVD de la historia de instrumentos típicos como las marimbas, tambores, flautas, guitarras y bailes tradicionales de Latinoamérica.
Al terminar la presentación, los integrantes compartieron de sus propias costumbres, historias y opiniones en torno a la transculturación de los bailes de orígen africano e instrumentos de orígen espanol.
Para acompanar el tema de la cultura, historia y ritmo musical de Latinoamérica, dos de los miembros, los argentinos Paola Alvarez y Ricardo Vargas, tocaron guitarra y un teclado.
Para los integrantes de este grupo cultural, este intelecto colectivo es la razón por la cual se reunen y comparten sus ideas.
"La tertulia provee un ambiente tranquilo y educativo", dijo el pintor colombiano Alberto Gomez, residente de Deltona. "Vengo a sacar en conclusión que conozco más de Latinoamérica aquí en la tertulia que cuando estaba en Colombia".
Gomez no esta solo en sus observaciones.
El director del Programa de Estudios Latinoamericános y Caribeños de la Universidad de la Florida Central, Luis Martinez-Fernandez, llegó a la Florida Central en el otoño y dice que la tertulia y los otros clubes proveen una agenda similar a la que el promueve en la universidad.
"Ambos resaltan y defienden la cultura hispana", dijo Martinez-Fernandez. "Me da gusto que haya tantos aliados a favor de este esfuerzo".
Puede comunicarse con Walter Pacheco a través de wpacheco@orlandosentinel.com o 407-420-6262. Copyright (c) 2005, Orlando Sentinel
The Daytona News Journal, Daytona Beach, Florida
Thursday, February 17, 2005
THE INDEPENDENT VOICE OF VOLUSIA & FLAGLER COUNTIES
West Volusia County
Gatherings a cultural oasis for Hispanics By PATRICIO G. BALONA Staff Writer
Last update: February 17, 2005
DELTONA -- With eyes closed and palms raised, as if praying, Iris Gomez's lips quivered.
Words of pain poured forth, ascending to a high pitch. She paused, and for a brief moment, the guitar accompanying her, moaned in agony.
Her heartrending interpretation of the poem "El Caballo Overo" or The Golden Horse, jerked her audience at the meeting to tears, their eyes glistening in the living room light.
Iris Gomez, 45, of Deltona, is no actor. She was one of 25 residents who gathered for the tertulia at Alberto Gomez's home in Deltona last week.
The meeting, or tertulia, is a reunion of people who come together to converse and distract themselves, said host Alberto Gomez, a painter from Bogota, Colombia, who has lived in Deltona for eight years. It's a meeting of Latinos who find themselves alone in the United States. It helps them cope with their homesickness for their countries, families and cultures, he said.
"It's also an effort to keep alive the flame of the Latin culture through poetry, literature, painting and a celebration of the arts," Alberto Gomez said.
The poem, "El Caballo Overo," is about a great horse dying of old age. The owner asks her employee to end its suffering by slitting its throat with a knife. The employee approaches the horse with a large knife.
"You will feel the steel and you will see the blood," the employee reassures himself. "The flowing blood will take away your pain."
The faithful, aged horse feebly opens its large, sad eyes and looks at the employee. Memories flash before the man -- of the day the horse was born, all its playful moments, the times when the beast unflinchingly galloped 14 leagues in the dark to get help when the children got sick.
As if sobbing, Iris Gomez finishes reciting the man's words telling his employer he could not slaughter the beloved animal.
"Let him die woman, let him die of old age."
Iris Gomez opens her eyes and the room explodes with applause.
The Tertulia Cultural Hispana (The Hispanic Cultural Tertulia) started three years ago as a book club at a Borders Bookstore in Winter Park, said founder Miguelangel Perez. The first four people read books or watched movies in Spanish.
Perez, 33, is a social communicator, journalist and director of the Buena Nueva, closed-circuit Catholic radio station in Orlando.
"It was the desire of being able to share life with other people," Perez said, popping open a bottle of champagne last week to toast to the third anniversary. "The Hispanic Cultural Tertulia lets us 'live' in this country."
Now, members meet at different members' homes to continue the tradition of socializing through the arts. Attendants were from Argentina, Colombia, Cuba, El Salvador, Peru and Puerto Rico. They are publicists, journalists, photographers, philosophers, artists, musicians and lawyers who left their countries and families to live in the United States. Some still have their professions, but some have not been that lucky. Some do odd jobs to survive.
So, the tertulia is a support network for people like Mimi Sandoval of Orlando, who recently returned from her native El Salvador and brought Salvadoran treats to share with her friends at the meeting.
It was Iris Gomez's first tertulia and she left in high spirits. A licensed professor with an education degree in Colombia, she left her country to escape the violence and get away from the memory of her mother being kidnapped. Her mother, Mariela Moncada de Ruiz, 60, walked eight days through the jungle after escaping the kidnappers who had her for nine months.
She now lives safely in another town in Colombia.
"Some may not know it but for some of us, peace comes at a very high price," said Iris Gomez. "We leave our countries, families and way of life, looking for that bit of peace that gives us hope and life."
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