Palombo’s Travels

By David Gerlach, The L Magazine, October 1, 2003

Bernardo Palombo is a contradiction. It begins with a military college in Argentina during the 1960s: “I was trained to do what they did later. They killed 30,000 people. I left because I saw it was going to happen.” Now he practices Buddhism. Palombo moves between exhaustion, bewilderment and simple pleasure as he recounts his experiences since coming to New York City from rural Mendoza. The breadth of his tales seems absurd. Even Palombo chuckles looking back over the past 35 years. “Fortunately, there are newspapers to corroborate what I am telling you,” he adds.

Sample chapters of Palombo’s life offer recurring themes of hatched plans, tribulations and ultimately, endurance. Shortly after coming to New York in the 1970s, he made ends meet as a nude model, which then led to a few pornographic movies. By mid-decade, Palombo had composed songs in Spanish for Sesame Street. A signature is “El Cuerpo” or “The Body” (a children’s song, not a porn flick). Though never trained to read or play music, Palombo wrote the scores for two documentaries: Americas in Transition and El Salvador: Another Vietnam. Each received an Academy Award nomination in 1981. His “rebellious spirit” has brought Palombo to the forefront of numerous political causes abroad and in New York. Naturally, the federal government has kept an eye on him. “The Center for Constitutional rights sent me the file that the FBI has on me. 27 pages. Most of it was crossed out.”

One constant throughout Palombo’s life has been El Taller Latinoamericano (The Latin American Workshop). He founded the first installment in 1978. “That was the time of military governments in Chile, in Argentina, in Uruguay. A lot of exiles were coming into the city and there was not a place where people could get together.” The mission was to provide an open space for cultural exchange and dialogue. Space where both a supporter and an opponent of Fidel Castro could express opinions. Musicians played. Artists displayed their work. “People did not have the connections to go through the whole bureaucracy of SoHo whoever wanted to do something creative was welcome.” Word spread throughout the city. A bridge between cultures and populations was formed.

“We are not a language school. We are not a club. We are not a dance space, per say. But all those things together happen here. It is like quantum physics in action,” says Palombo from the Taller’s current home on Broadway and 104th Street. On a recent late summer evening, the setting sun shines through a makeshift, yet brilliantly painted Plexiglas panel propped against a window. A cellist practices. In the adjoining room a spritely gringa dance instructor walks among a circle of salsa students. Artwork surrounds them. Posters announce upcoming concerts. Behind two doors, Spanish classes unfold. A Dominican teacher offers, “ Me Tataaste?” The class responds, “Te taté.” The call and response continues back and forth, filling the space with the rhythms of spoken Spanish.

Palombo developed this Acoustic Method of Spanish instruction while teaching throughout the city during the 1970s. The Taller also leads Spanish programs at hospitals, churches and corporations. While Spanish classes have kept the center going financially, it has often teetered on the brink of collapse. “It has never been run by real professional administrators. It is a paradox.” Unashamedly, he adds, “I don’t have any idea about the business side of things.” Though the Taller has no regular fundraising strategy, it somehow rambles on, despite unwanted interest from the government: Palombo recalls when Witness for Peace workers came for Spanish lessons before heading to Central America. “The FBI was curious to how and what we were teaching. One day, an FBI agent introduced himself and gave me his card. He took classes for 6 months.”

The Taller has been in four different locations since its inception: the first two in Chelsea, the third in the basement of an East Village Russian Orthodox church. Palombo lived and worked from the enormous East Village space with his twin sons. The Taller served as the cultural and social meeting place for the Lower East Side, with an abundance of artists coming through, from Jews and Haitians to Italians and Colombians.

As Taller blossomed, the relationship with the church deteriorated over asbestos removal in the group’s space. The community rallied behind the Taller, according to Palombo. Eventually, lawsuits, threats, and actual assaults forced the Taller to close in 1991. Palombo adds a customary degree of conspiracy to the episode. The real issue was that “the church is still filled with old Nazis that the State Department brought over after the WWII.” Afterwards, Palombo accepted a student’s offer and went into “exile” on Long Island at the transplanted country estate of Madame de Chatelet, Voltaire’s mistress — the maison had been moved to Upper Brookville from France in 1928. Palombo returned to open the present Taller in 1996.

When asked about the recurring sensational episodes at the Taller and in his own life, Palombo offers the Taller as culprit. “It is not just the dynamic of the Latin community or the gringo community. It is the dynamic of another kind of community. Things like that happen here. That is why it is so crazy.”

Palombo ponders stepping back from Taller to concentrate on personal creative pursuits. Later, he admits, “Taller is the only thing that I know.” In addition, he continually composes and produces musical collaborations. The Taller has hosted the likes of Philip Glass and David Byrne, among others.

The Taller and Palombo keep moving forward. Though his long black hair is showing hints of gray, his wicked sense of humor and possibility remain. Describing himself as “a leftover of the left,” Palombo claims that “many people have recorded my music and I have not gotten a penny.” But it is hard to find any bitterness. “In Buddhism, it’s a privilege to serve people, especially if you enjoy it. You have to do it with that spirit. I am from a small town. I am still fascinated by the city and the different people and the possibility to meet so many strange ways of life.”