2008 Lotus Bossoms Featured Artists

Sparky & Rhonda Rucker • Paul Taylor • Los Llaneros

Sparky & Rhonda Rucker

The Ruckers perform in the U.S. and abroad, singing songs and telling stories from the American folk tradition. For more than forty years, Sparky has been a folklorist, musician, historian, storyteller, and author specializing in American and African-American folk traditions. Rhonda is an accomplished harmonica, piano, banjo, and bones player, and adds vocal harmonies to their songs.

Paul Taylor

Paul Taylor celebrates the culture of his Australian homeland through story, song and didjeridoo. He travels throughout the US, performing to all ages and conducting school residencies, combining storytelling and music with dance and painting. Taylor is mentored by Yidunduma Bill Harney, last male custodian of the Wardaman culture in Australia's Northern Territory. Now based in Laramie, Wyoming, Taylor returns to Australia on sabbatical each year.

Los Llaneros

Los Llaneros (Los Yah-NEH-Ros) bring to the stage the melodies of the Colombian / Venezuelan Llanos or plains that surround the vast basin of the Orinoco River in South America. The Llanos is geographically and culturally unique, a little-known area of Latin America. Its music evolved from contact between nomadic Indians and Jesuit settlers five hundred years ago. Due to the syncopations and difficult harp techniques
used in the music of the Llanos, it is rarely
performed in its authentic style outside the
region. The ensemble was founded in 1978
and consists of Karin Stein (Colombian), Edgar East (Panamanian), and Rene Devia (Colombian). Sponsored by IU Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies.

View the full schedule of Lotus Blossoms events here.