La Comparsa del barrio: Integracion

Candombe is a musical genre that has its roots in the African Bantu, and is proper of Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil (each country with its own style).Uruguayan Candombe is the most practiced and spread internationally and has been recognized by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The Argentine candombe can be found to a lesser extent in the cities of Buenos Aires, Santa Fe, Paraná, Saladas y Corrientes and in Brazil in the area of Minas Gerais. Originated from the influences of African music, was developed on both banks of the Rio de la Plata because of the large influx of slaves during the colonial period and well into the 19th century, and with the republican form living on both banks. Over the 20th century Uruguayan Candombe was gradually leaving to be a unique feature of the Afro-Uruguayans to become a feature of the Uruguayan cultural identity. The Argentine candombe has gained visibility a few years ago and its practice is limited to Afro-Argentines. Candombe is played mainly using three drums the largest (lowest pitched) being "El Piano", the mid ranged tambor being "El Repique" and the highest toned tambor called "El Chico". The Piano's drumhead measures approximately 16 inches in diameter. The Repique's drumhead measures approximately twelve inches in diameter and the Chico's eight and a half inches. These drums resemble congas with extra wide bellies, they are much wider in the center. A strap is usually added so the player can play while walking. Candombe is played using one drumstick and one open hand, unlike playing the bongos or the congas which only uses the hands.
Common Origins: 
According to George Reid Andrews, the historian of Montevideo Black communities, after the middle of the 19th century younger blacks in particular abandoned the candombe in favor of dances from Europe such as the mazurka. Meanwhile, whites began to imitate the steps and movements of blacks. Calling themselves Los Negros, upper class portenos in the 1860s and 1870s blackened their faces and formed one of the carnival processions each year. A new dance, which embodied the movement and style of the candombe, and called a tango with couples dancing apart, rather than in an embrace, was created by the Afro-Argentines of Mondongo in the year 1877. So wrote a man who identified himself as "Viejo Tanguero" in a September 1913 article in Buenos Aires's first mass circulation popular newspaper. In a book published in 1883 Ventura Lynch—a noted student of the dances and folklore of Buenos Aires Province—noted the influence the Afro-Argentine dancers had on the compadritos, or tough guys, who apparently frequented the Afro-Argentine dance venues. Lynch wrote, "the milonga is danced only by the compadritos of the city, who have created it as a mockery of the dances the blacks hold in their own places". Lynch's report was interpreted by Robert Farris Thompson in Tango: The Art of Love as meaning that city compadritos danced milonga, not rural gauchos. Thompson notes that the population of city toughs dancing milonga would have included blacks and mulattoes, and that it would not have been danced as a mockery by all the dancers.
In Uruguay:
A music troupe playing Uruguayan Candombe in the "Desfile de Llamadas, through the Sur and Palermo neighborhoods, Montevideo (Uruguay). In the third decade of the 19th century the word candombe began to appear in Montevideo, referring to self-help dancing societies founded by persons of African descent. The term means "pertaining to blacks" in Ki-Kongo. In Montevideo it meant more than a dance or a music or a congregation, but all of the above. Candombe the dance was a local fusion of various African traditions. A complicated choreography included a final section with wild rhythms, freely improvised steps, and energetic, semi-athletic movements.
Uruguayan candombe:

The music of candombe is performed by a group of drummers called a cuerda. The barrel-shaped drums, or tamboriles, have specific names according to their size and function: chico (small, high timbre, marks the tempo), repique (medium, syncopation and improvisation) and piano (large, low timbre, melody). An even larger drum, called bajo or bombo (very large, very low timbre, accent on the fourth beat), was once common but is now declining in use. A cuerda at a minimum needs three drummers, one on each part. A full cuerda will have 50-100 drummers, commonly with rows of seven or five drummers, mixing the three types of drums. A typical row of five can be piano-chico-repique-chico-piano, with the row behind having repique-chico-piano-chico-repique and so on to the last row. Tamboriles are made of wood with animal skins that are rope-tuned or fire-tuned minutes before the performance. They are worn at the waist with the aid of a shoulder strap called a talig or talí and played with one stick and one hand. A key rhythmic figure in candombe is the clave (in 3-2 form). It is played on the side of the drum, a procedure known as "hacer madera" (literally, "making wood").
Master Candombe drummers: 
Among the most important and traditional Montevidean rhythms are: Cuareim, Ansina y Cordon. There are several master drummers who have kept Candombe alive uninterrupted for two hundred years.
Some of highlights are: in Ansina school: Wáshington Ocampo, Héctor Suárez, Pedro "Perico" Gularte, Eduardo "Cacho" Giménez, Julio Giménez, Raúl "Pocho" Magariños, Rubén Quirós, Alfredo Ferreira, "Tito" Gradín, , Raúl "Maga" Magariños, Luis "Mocambo" Quirós , Fernando "Hurón" Silva, Eduardo "Malumba" Gimenez, Alvaro Salas, Daniel Gradín, Sergio Ortuño y José Luis Giménez.

Uruguayan Candombe Performance: 
A full Candombe group, collectively known as a Comparsa Lubola (composed of blackened white people, traditionally with burnt corks) or Candombera (composed of black people), constitutes the cuerda, a group of female dancers known as mulatas, and several stock characters, each with their own specific dances. The stock characters include: La Mama Vieja ("Old Mother"), the matriarch El Gramillero ("Medicine Man"), Mama Vieja's husband, responsible for health and well-being El Escobero or Escobillero ("Stick Holder"), who carries a long magical wooden stick that he uses to create new ways and possibilities for the future Candombe is performed regularly in the streets of old Montevideo's south neighbourhood in January and February, during Uruguay's Carnival period, and also in the rest of the country. All the comparsas, of which there are 80 or 90 in existence, participate in a massive Carnival parade called Las Llamadas ("calls") and vie with each other in official competitions in the Teatro de Verano theatre. During Las Llamadas , members of the comparsa often wear costumes that reflect the music's historical roots in the slave trade, such as sun hats and black face-paint. The monetary prizes are modest; more important aspects include enjoyment, the fostering of a sense of pride and the winning of respect from peers. Cuerdaluna is a very popluar Candombe group in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Intense performances can cause damage to red blood cells, which manifests as rust-colored urine immediately after drumming.

A oil painting of Pedro Figari depicting

Candombe dancers (oil on canvas 75 X 105 cms.) Costantini Collection.