Printer-friendly versionSend by emailPDF version

The world feels a little smaller when you watch Peru Negro. The group hails from Lima, but there's something Cuban in their drumbeats, something African in the way they whip the air with their hips and shoulders, even a bit of the American South in a body-slapping musical routine as near to the hambone as you'll see north of the Carolinas. What feels so familiar in Peru Negro's program, performed Thursday night at the University of Maryland's Clarice Smith Center, is part of the mystery of the African diaspora, linking islands and continents and cultures in ways that resonate to this day.