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N.Y. parade to see Dayton’s youth influence

Staff photo by Teesha McClam Grupo Caribe practices for the National Puerto Rican Day Parade in New York on June 14, in Holy Family in Dayton.

Yamilka Jimenez, 9, and Alex Jimenez, 11, dance to the rhythm of the music with Grupo Caribe as they practice for the National Puerto Rican Day Parade in New York on June 14.

Staff photo by Teesha McClam Yamilka Jimenez, 9, and Alex Jimenez, 11, dance to the rhythm of the music with Grupo Caribe as they practice for the National Puerto Rican Day Parade in New York on June 14.

Young ladies of Grupo Caribe place the hats back on the gentlemen during a dance routine practice for the National Puerto Rican Day Parade in New York on June 14.

Staff photo by Teesha McClam Young ladies of Grupo Caribe place the hats back on the gentlemen during a dance routine practice for the National Puerto Rican Day Parade in New York on June 14.

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Brooklyn Rodriguez, 11, turns to the beat as she dances with Grupo Caribe at Holy Family Church in Dayton. Grupo Caribe will be National Puerto Rican Day Parade in New York on June 14.

Staff photo by Teesha McClam Brooklyn Rodriguez, 11, turns to the beat as she dances with Grupo Caribe at Holy Family Church in Dayton. Grupo Caribe will be National Puerto Rican Day Parade in New York on June 14.

Grupo Caribe taking its kids group for first time to city’s Puerto Rican Day event.

By Terry Morris, Staff Writer Updated 6:35 PM Saturday, May 16, 2009

DAYTON — Hey, kids! we’re going to New York.

To put it another way, “Mira chicos! Vamonos a la Nueva York.”

Grupo Caribe, a Dayton area group that specializes in the dances of Puerto Rico, has marched and performed several times in New York City’s annual Puerto Rican Day Parade.

For the first time, the adults are taking the company’s youth contingent along for the parade on June 14.

The trip is partially an active response to too much sitting. Several festivals Grupo Caribe usually performs in around the region have been canceled this year due to the economy.

There will be no canceling the Puerto Rico Day Parade, which started 50 years ago and is now New York’s largest.

Ranging in age from 4 to 15 Grupo Caribe’s 21 youth members and total contingent of 70 are expected to be among more than 80,000 marchers passing by close to 3 million spectators during the seven-hour procession on Fifth Avenue. Fathers of several dancers will provide live accompaniment on pleneras, hand-held drums.

One of the young dancers, Jailene Corporan, 12, of Bellbrook, said she expects to be part of “a huge performance they throw at you. There will be Puerto Rican flags all around, a lot more people and skyscrapers.”

Alex Banerjee, 14, of Centerville, said the New York audience “will also be tougher. We will have to step it up. We represent the family we are. We are one big Hispanic family. We are tight.”

When asked it she’s nervous about her New York debut, Natasha Lugo, 13, of Beavercreek, shrugged and answered succinctly: “No.”

Besides the annual World A’Fair in Dayton, concluding today, May 17, at the Dayton Convention Center, other venues for Grupo Caribe have included Columbus, Cleveland, the Cincy Cinco Festival and the Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati.

Jorge Rodriguez, co-founder and director of the company along with his wife, Sulma Rodriguez, said the dancers will walk when the parade is moving. “But it’s a very slow parade with a lot of stops. When the parade stops, we will perform.”

The youth company is directed by Wanda Benitez, whose daughter, Taina, 11, sparked the youth movement eight years ago when she started dancing with Caribe’s adults at age 3. “When other parents and kids saw that, they thought a company for the kids would be a good idea,” Benitez said.

Interviewed following the weekly rehearsal at Holy Family Church on Findlay Street, the young dancers listed some of the cultural dances they do:

The reggaeton, which A.J. Jimenez, 15 , of Huber Heights said “is a more casual, street dance.” Alex Banerjee, 14, of Centerville, said, “it’s urban.” Elisa Banerjee added that “it’s bad. It has attitude.”

The bomba is Benitez’s favorite. “It comes from African slavery time. People did it to work out their frustrations. It gives me goosebumps,” she said.

The merengue, a couples dance to a two-step beat, is very popular with the young dancers, she added.

The plena, a dance indigenous to Puerto Rico, “is like a newspaper,” assistant youth director Nery Pantojas said. “The people used it to share the news and what was happening.”

Pantojas said the youth company “is a blended group. We are not all from Puerto Rican heritage. “We are a blended group, not all from Puerto Rican heritage. We come from different cultures — African-American, mixed Indian-Mexican, American and others.”

She said the adults in Grupo Caribe believe it’s important for the teens and children “to learn these traditions. We can tell them and tell them. That only goes so far. It makes a big difference when they are finally doing it and see the crowd watching them. They know it then.”

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