Carmen Román
Executive Director
Carmen is a dancer, choreographer, educator, filmmaker, scholar, and the founding artistic director of Cunamacué, a dance company which promotes the continuity of Afro-Peruvian culture. Raised both in Lima, Peru, and in the San Francisco Bay Area her work is deeply rooted in Afro-Peruvian dance vocabulary and also uses movements inspired by other dances of the African Diaspora and modern dance. Her article, “The Danced Spirituality of African Descendants in Peru”, was published in a special edition of the African Performance Review (2013). In 2015-2016 Carmen was awarded a U.S. Fulbright Fellowship in Dance to Peru to research Afro-Peruvian dance through practice, performance, and observation. Her dance documentary “Herencia de Un Pueblo (Inheriting a Legacy )” shot in El Carmen, Peru, was awarded Best Documentary and Best Cinematography at the San Francisco Dance Film Festival (2016) and has screened in various cities across the U.S. and internationally in England, Tanzania, and Canada. In 2018 she was part of NYFA’s Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program. In 2019 she was awarded the Mythili Kumar Emerging Artist Award and was commissioned to create new work for the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival. Carmen has been teaching dance for over ten years to children and adults in the Bay Area and in rural communities in El Salvador and Peru. She holds a B.A. in Dance from San Francisco State University and an MFA in Dance from Mills College.
Leadership Team
Cunamacué’s Leadership Team translates our vision into action, managing the daily operations and artistic programs that bring Afro-Peruvian culture to life across the Bay Area and beyond.
Pierr Padilla Vasquez
Artistic Director
Pierr is a professional artist trained in performing arts in Peru. He studied traditional Peruvian dance at the Escuela Nacional Superior de Folklore José María Arguedas. He trained as a professional actor at the prestigious Roberto Ángeles Acting Workshop. He is a member of the renowned Vásquez family, known as guardians of Afro-Peruvian musical traditions. They have passed down the traditions from generation to generation since the end of the 19th century. Pierr has participated in shows by renowned artists and groups, highlighting among them master teacher Victoria Santa Cruz, Eva Ayllón, Yuyachkani and the Uruguayan singer-songwriter Jorge Drexler. He was artistic coordinator of the Audience Program at the Gran Teatro Nacional del Perú. As an educator, he has been a professor and director of the Afro-Peruvian Dance Company at the Universidad del Pacífico del Perú; professor at the Center of Music and Dance of the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú; and director and teacher of DanzAfro a school of Afro-Peruvian Dances. Pierr currently lives in Oakland, California. He is a music and dance teacher in elementary schools and a teacher of Afro-Peruvian dances for youth and adults in the San Francisco Bay Area. Pierr produces the annual festival, Afro-Peruvian Fest. He leads the educational platform, SEMA (Seminario de Música Afroperuana/ Afro-Peruvian Music Seminar). He directs the Afro-Peruvian musical group Huarango, and is a musician with the Radio Café trio.