Evaristo “Tito” Rodriguez was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1961. At age six, his family returned to Puerto Rico to live in Dorado, Puerto Rico, where he participated in plays at school, wrote poetry and was introduced to folkloric dances and traditional learning through participation in community events and celebrations.
Upon returning to Chicago in 1976, Tito entered the 10th grade at Roberto Clemente Community Academy High School, became an active member of the high school ASPIRA Club and the Bilingual Student Association, and was introduced in a more formal setting to theater, the tradition of the Baguine, and to Danza, Mazurka, and Plena by his teacher, and later mentor, Orlando Jimenez Jimenez (now deceased). With Jimenez Jimenez he learned the movements and the tradition of using everyday events to express emotions within Puerto Rican traditional dances.
Tito quickly became a founding member of “La Tuna (Estudiantina) de Clemente, ” presenting cultural and folkloric dance performances city-wide in Chicago’s various high schools and the Latino Community. In 1978, Evaristo was elected President of the Bilingual Student Association and, as President, developed a Drama Club for bilingual students through which he was able to increase interest in and awareness of Caribbean arts and, in particular, the traditions of Puerto Rico’s oral history, and dances. But very soon, even in High School, Tito became aware that in order to be able to express his art, the dances of Puerto Rico, he would have to learn how to drum, how to create the drum, and teach the songs and dances of Bomba, Plena and Seis. Because there were no Chicago cultural institutions at that time that taught the music, drumming, and dancing of Puerto Rico, he would need to create them.
Tito continued to travel back and forth between Chicago and Puerto Rico, learning the tradition of Carnaval through active participation, and learning Bomba Dancing through Margarita Lacen, a bomba dancer from Loiza, Puerto Rico. As he attended more bomba gatherings in his visits to Puerto Rico, Tito continued to learn more Bomba dances, from such dancers as Awilda Sterling, now living in New York, and Awildo Luna. He also learned Bomba drumming from Luis “Chichito” Cepeda (now deceased), Feliz Diaz, Dr. Emmanuel Dufrasne, and Don Modesto Cepeda, all from Puerto Rico.
In 1982 Tito founded “El Balet Folklorico Puertorriqueño Yucayeque”. “El Balet” (“The Ballet”) promoted the culture and heritage of Puerto Rico through cultural presentations, dance performances and musical presentations. Tito was the Director and Choreographer of the Ballet Yucayeque until its final days in 1995. He was also the Founder, Artistic Director and Choreographer for “Grupo Yubà,” the musical and dance group of the Ruiz Belvis Cultural Center from 1992-1997. “Grupo Yubà” specialized in the rhythms and dances of Bomba and Plena, and participated in DanceAfrica Chicago 1996, toured most of the mid-west states, and opened for Cespedes, the best Afro-Caribbean group of the time, in San Francisco.
In the year 2000, Tito created the not-for-profit organization AfriCaribe. Its mission is to preserve, promote and develop the Puerto Rican and Caribbean culture with a primary focus on the presence of African cultures in the Caribbean. AfriCaribe seeks to accomplish its mission by developing a performance ensemble that will utilize dance, music, theater and other artistic media to celebrate cultural traditions. AfriCaribe is a group of people whose main goal is to acknowledge the offerings of the past by fusing them with original contemporary ideas, thereby contributing to an evolving culture.
Tito’s philosophy is that culture is the soul of a people. Characteristics such as traditions, language, literature, theater, music, dance and art are developed over time through the experience of creation, adaptation, and survival. Puerto Ricans are a people built on a foundation of change. All the Caribbean Islands support cultures that created, adapted and survived, combining the influences of the indigenous Taino, the European conquests and the African slave-trade. As a teacher at Antonia Pantoja High School, an alternative Charter School that is part of ASPIRA Inc. of Illinois, Tito has taught at-risk youth Puerto Rican History and Literature, Spanish, and Folk Arts of the Caribbean and developed a music and dance student ensemble that explored the African influences on the music and dance of the Caribbean and the influence of Caribbean dance in other Afro-American rhythms like Hip Hop, Break Dancing, R&B, Jazz, etc. This extraordinary ensemble, known as “Taller Cocobale,” toured the United States and Puerto Rico and performed with the internationally known DanceAfrica Chicago.
Tito has received numerous awards and honors, including the 2006 Latinos in Philanthropy Individual Donor Award, the Unsung Heroes of Logan Square and Humboldt Park (1996 and 2000), the Mayor Community Award, Puerto Rican Parade Festivities, 2002, and, in 2004, a tribute to Tito was organized by local community members, to celebrate his “25 years of Cultural Work.” Tito has continued to develop himself as a choreographer, performer and curator of Puerto Rican folkloric culture by meeting with artists from Puerto Rico, United States and other countries of Latin America and Africa. He has studied with groups and individuals such as: Maria Teresa Miranda of “Gibaro”, Ballet de Dorado, “Arawak,” Felix Diaz, Luis Cepeda and Nuno of “Los Pleneros de la 23 Abajo,” the traditional dance and music group “Areyto,” Los Pleneros de la 21, Los Pleneros del Pueblo, Hector “Tito” Matos, Don Rafael Cepeda, Don Modesto Cepeda and his group Cimiento Puertorriqueno, Vembayutu, Conjunto Tipico San Juan, Dr. Emanuel Dufrasne and his group Paracumbe, Dona Isabel Albizu and her group Bambalue, Don Jesus Cepeda and his group Bombalele, Merian Soto, Baba Chuck Davis, Renie Harris and his group Pure Movement, among many others. He has traveled extensively throughout Puerto Rico, Mexico and the United States.
Evaristo “Tito” Rodriguez obtained his Bachelor of Arts Degree from Loyola University in 1986 and his Master of Arts in Adult Education from National Louis University in 2001.
Roberto Clemente ASPIRA Club - 1979
ASPIRA's 30th Gala
