Formidable responsibilities sit on Rony Campos’ shoulders, but his feet still dance, his hands still drum, his mouth still sings.  The music he makes and the obligations he bears emanate from a single source: the legendary Afro-Peruvian song-and-dance troupe Peru Negro, which his late father founded 35 years ago.  To it, Campos has devoted most his life, and, as its director, he holds this venerable, institution’s future – his father’s life project – in his hands.

“It’s not easy.  It’s a big responsibility.  But I’m not going to run away from it,” he says in a phone interview from his home in Lima promoting the group’s Miami debut over the weekend.

For 35 years, Peru Negro has thrilled audiences and critics in its home country and abroad with vibrant interpretations of Afro-Peruvian music and danced – the melancholic landó, the joyful festejo, the sensual alcatraz – colorful costumes, and traditional instruments, such as the percussive wooden box called cajón and the dried-out donkey jawbones with rattling teeth.

“The key to Peru Negro’s success has always been its discipline.  My father was very strict and very devoted to his work.  I try to emulate him in that,” says Campos, who turns 40 on Sunday.

Campos was 5 when his father, Ronaldo Campos de la Colina, a master choreagrapher and musician, founded the ensemble.  He remembers the exact date: Feb. 26, 1969.  With reverence and without prompting, he rattled off the named of every founding member.  In August 2001 his father died at 74.  Campos, a Peru Negro member since age 14, took over as director, fulfilling his father’s wishes.

The quality has remained high throughout the years.  “Peru Negro is the best troupe of Afro-Peruvian song and dance,” says José Marcos Rodriguez, who is in charge of cultural affairs at Perú’s Miami consulate.

Afro-Peruvian songs and dances had been almost forgotten when in the 1950s a group of Peruvian artists and scholars began a successful effort to recover the traditions of the country’s slaves, who lived primarily in costal cities in the 1700s and 1800s.  They rescued a rich music that is quite distinct from its Afro-Caribbean and Afro-Brazilian cousins.

For one, the percussive backbone is the cajón, which evolved from wooden cargo crates slaves used in lieu of skin-lidded drums, which the Spainards banned.  It also has heavy Andean and European influenced, as evidenced by the guitar’s prominence in this music.

Peru Negro’s main contribution was to refine and develop these recovered songs and dances, and push them into the performing arts realm.  Peru Negro had influenced internationally renowned Peruvian singers such as Eva Ayllon and Susana Baca.

“Peru Negro took those basic ideas and advanced them, injecting artistic professionalism into them, making them a stage spectacle,” says Javier Leon, a Peruvian assistant professor of ethnomusicology at Tulane University.

The populist dictatorship that ruled Peru from 1968 until 1980 backed Peru Negro financially, allowing its members to work full-time with the group, travel and buy costumes.  The government also provided a permanent place for rehearsals.  Things changed financially for Peru Negro after 1980 as a result of various national economic crises, cuts in government spending and social unrest (including a period of domestic terrorism.)

Peru Negro today received no government funding.  It lacks a permanent rehearsal space.  Its 30 members, Campos included, can’t work full-time for the troupe because revenue from ticket sales and private donations is insufficient.  Campos’ plan for keeping Peru Negro afloat? Look abroad.

In 2002, his friend Juan Morillo, a Los Angeles-based Peruvian promoter, became the group’s U.S. manager and arranged the group’s first-ever U.S. tour, a short string of very successful presentations in California in May 2002.  Encouraged, Campos and Morillo planned this longer tour with 11 U.S. dates and one in Canada, and produced a new Peru Negro CD, titled Jolgorio, released in January.

“The group is in a renewal stage, with many new, young members and a focus on internationalization,” Morillo says, adding that the group returns to the U.S. for tours in October 2004 and February 2005, and may travel to Europe this year.