Lifelong Portobelo resident and Congo “Cantalante"/lead singer and ritual specialist Simona Esquina has been singing and dancing in the Portobelo Congo tradition since she was seven years old. Part of a family whose participation in the tradition extends more then five generations, Simona's father was the renounced King in the Congo tradition, Vicente Esquina. Simona is the great-aunt co-interviewer Gustavo Esquina

Simona Esquina: Singer in the Congo Tradition of Portobelo, Panama - 2003

Digital Portobelo is a cultural preservation and collaborative research initiative that focuses on Portobelo, Panama--an Afro-Latin community located on the Caribbean coast of the Republic of Panama. It represents the second phase of UNC Assistant Professor Renee Alexander Craft's critical ethnographic project that began in 2000. The first phase is represented through her monograph entitled When the Devil Knocks: The Congo Tradition and the Politics of Blackness in 20th Century Panama, which has been accepted for publication as part of Ohio State University's "Black Performance and Cultural Criticism" series. As a collaborative, interdisciplinary, digital humanities initiative, the project seeks to make the process and products of research more available and accessible beyond the academy—especially to the communities represented by and invested in them. Further, it responds to a call from the community for greater cultural preservation and a desire from researchers on the topic to have a better platform to share and expand upon existing research. 

Simona Esquina: Singer in the Congo Tradition of Portobelo, Panama - 2003

DigitalPortobelo