Welcome to Broadway Stages' Spotlight, where we feature local shops, restaurants, organizations, individuals, and venues. Join Broadway Stages in recognizing Hispanic and Latino Americans' values, culture, and contributions in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, observed each year from September 15 to October 15. This week, we present La Manga, a Brooklyn-based collective of women artists and a musical phenomenon!

This past July, nearly a thousand people enjoyed the festive atmosphere at the 8th annual Kingsland Wildflowers Festival. Those in attendance were captivated by the performance of La Manga amongst the one-of-a-kind setting of wildflower meadows atop the Broadway Stages' film and television studios. The performance transported the guests through the power of storytelling, dance, and song.

La Manga is a cultural identity laboratory composed of Daniela Serna, Andrea Chavarro, Katherine Ocampo, and Lina Fernanda Silva. The band met at a jam session in 2022 in Prospect Park. The gathering was a celebration of bullerengue, a traditional musical genre and dance from the Caribbean region of Colombia and the Darién Province in Panama. Traditionally, bullerengue is a matriarchal performance accompanied by local artisan drums developed in the Palenques or Maroon communities. The occasion inspired the women to study and learn how to play the Tambora, a two-headed Dominican drum, Maracas, and the Llamador, a percussion instrument used in Colombian folklore.

The quartet decided they would work to foster a creative community that accesses the Afro-Colombian heritage. La Manga uses traditional percussive music such as Tambor alegre, Tambor llamador, Tambora y maracas, and Black and Indigenous oral traditions as a lifeline to connect diverse cultures.

Colombian-born Daniela Serna is La Manga’s musical director. She considers herself an investigator and an ambassador of Colombian Caribbean rhythms. For over 16 years, she has traveled to festivals and small villages to learn from elders. She has studied with Colombian legends like folk singer Petrona Martínez and bullerengue bandleader Emilsen Pacheco. As an ambassador, she finds meaning in sharing what she has learned with children and diverse communities. She tries to build an understanding of the joy between the rhythms transmitted and the powerful story of Black and Indigenous resistance and resilience.

La Manga's first residency was at the iconic Brooklyn venue Barbés. From there, their journey has taken them to The Museum of the City of New York, Moma PS1, The Eldridge Museum, the Bronx Music Heritage Center, Lincoln Center, and, of course, Kingsland Wildflowers at Broadway Stages.

This dynamic artist collective is truly something to be experienced. The New York Times says they use "the assets of the city – its confluence of cultures, its wide buffet of performance scenarios – to say something about the durability of a musical lineage, and maybe even expand it." For upcoming tour dates, you can follow them on Bandsintown.com, Instagram, and Facebook.

As one of New York's premier full-service film, television, live streaming, and music video studio production companies, Broadway Stages knows the transformative power of storytelling. We truly appreciate the artistry of La Manga and were honored to showcase their uniquely entrancing experience on our rooftops. If you haven't already taken the journey that their performance provides, we encourage you to do so! And when you do, tell them Broadway Stages sent you!