A Little Venezuelan Donkey on the Way to Bethlehem

Christmas cuteness at its finest: El Burrito Sabanero is not about food, but a favorite Christmas song in Latin America. Burro in Spanish means donkey, and burrito is little donkey. El Burrito Sabanero is about a boy who rides his little donkey to Bethlehem to see the niño Jesús.

This famous Venezuelan Christmas song, written by Hugo Blanco, gets played with about the same frequency as “Silent Night” does in the U.S. El Burrito is a joyful staple at elementary school Christmas recitals. The song is so precious that it’s not even necessary to know Spanish to enjoy it — but it has been translated.

El Burrito Sabanero has been covered by many artists, a few of which are below:

The latest version is by Incaptepec, a Latin-style jazz band. Click here for an article and the song.

Here is an adorable hip hop version by the Puerto Rican boy band Tick Tock:

The cuteness continues with a bilingual version by Bachata group, Aventura, from the Dominican Republic:

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Caracas Comes Alive in Cyrano Fernandez Movie

Another Venezuelan film participating in the Festival of New Latin American Cinema in Havana escaped our notice yesterday: Cyrano Fernandez by director Alberto Arvelo.

The movie is a modern-day version of the French drama Cyrano de Bergerac that takes place in the Caracas barrios. This love story features music by the popular Venezuelan rap group Tres Dueños. Check out their song “La Mala Vida,” and watch the trailer for Cyrano Fernandez with English subtitles below.

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Venezuela: Experimenting With Higher Education

A conference on “Trends in Contemporary Urban Music in Latin America” begins today in Caracas, and will take place all month. The future of pop, rock, hip hop, and electronic music will be debated by experts, students, and performers. It is hosted by the National Experimental University for the Arts, which is part of a system of state-sponsored institutions of higher education.

The “National Experimental Universities” were founded last year to increase access to university-level education in Venezuela. The schools are affordable — and thus accessible — to all. A dozen of them have been established throughout the country. Each one exercises organizational autonomy, and offers programs tailored to social and economic issues relevant in the regions where they are located.

Click here for links to these and other major universites in Venezuela.

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Venezuela’s “Sontizon”: Hip Hop That Heals

Sontizon is a salsa-infused hip hop collective that offers listeners more than just a sound: it offers them a vision.

The group got a slow start in 2000 and later re-grouped in 2002 after an aborted coup d’etat in Venezuela. The title of its new album, “For each 11th there is a 13th” (A cada 11 le llega su trece), refers to the day in April when citizens poured into the streets to demand the return of their democratically elected government. You can listen to songs from the album on Sontizon’s MySpace page or buy the CD through this site.

Sontizon does not hide its ideology; the group believes in creating a just and sustainable society, and wants to do so by uniting communities through music and helping people — especially youth — to improve their lives.

This is the basis for Sontizon’s work with Tiuna el Fuerte, a hip hop-inspired organization designed to promote people’s empowerment through “endogenous” (that is, inward-focused) development. Based in a poor area of Caracas, Tiuna el Fuerte creates safe spaces for free artistic expression. It also helps people meet their most basic needs by connecting them with free social services in areas like education, health care, and nutrition.

Sontizon’s own passion for education led them to sing about the state literacy program Misión Robinson. In the video below, you can watch them perform the song at the Teresa Carreno Theater in Caracas during a presidential address.

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