Carnival brings together university, community

Sizzling beats, exuberant motion and dynamic new poetry will heat up the night at a campus carnival that celebrates the Caribbean in music, word and dance. “Sin Fronteras Multicultural Carnival: Celebrating the Word Through Dance, Poetry and Caribbean Rhythms” will be held Saturday, Feb. 21, at 7 p.m. in the Margaret H’Doubler Performance Space, Lathrop Hall.

Anita Gonzalez, UW–Madison graduate and guest artist-in-residence, will lead a dance work created for the carnival. Gonzalez is a director, choreographer and performer, and an original member of the acclaimed African-American dance ensemble, Urban Bush Women. Her work fuses African-American and Latin American movements. The dancers are from campus and the community.

Steel pan virtuoso Jeff Narell will perform with his small ensemble in conjunction with Gonzalez’s premiere. Narell is an internationally known steel pianist, Afro-Caribbean percussionist and educator who has performed and recorded with an array of artists, including George Benson, the Grateful Dead and Bobby McFerrin.

Chinaka Hodge and Jason Mateo, national youth poetry slam champions, will thrill the audience with their mix of oral poetic traditions and contemporary culture as they redefine poetry and how we perceive it. Hodge has appeared on Def Poetry Jam on HBO and on the Teen People Person of the Year show. Both Hodge and Mateo have performed with nationally acclaimed poets.

The evening will include the final round of a poetry slam, featuring the teenage winners of spoken-word and creative-writing competitions held in Madison schools. A poetry slam is an Olympic-style poetry competition during which poets compete on teams in rounds with scores awarded by judges. The winner at the Sin Fronteras Multicultural Carnival will represent Madison in Los Angeles at Brave New Voices, The National Youth Poetry Festival.

Community and campus involvement was essential to Sin Fronteras organizers, according to William Ney, outreach coordinator for the Latin American, Caribbean and Iberian Studies Program.

“Saturday’s finale will be the end of a weeklong journey that features workshops and performances in four area high schools, lecture/demonstrations in a campus teacher-training course on the Caribbean, and a performance for families involved in the university’s PEOPLE [Pre-college Enrichment Opportunity Program for Learning Excellence] Program. A major event will also be held at Milwaukee’s United Community Center, which is the largest Latino cultural center in Wisconsin,” says Ney.

“The multicultural coalition that is making all this happen exemplifies how the campus and community can collaborate to celebrate diversity,” Ney adds.

LACIS is a co-sponsor of the carnival, along with the Dance Program, the Department of Theatre and Drama and the Multicultural Student Center, UW–Madison; the Madison Children’s Museum; and the Madison Metropolitan School District.

Tickets are $12.50, $5 for students, available at the Memorial Union Theater box office, 262-2201. If available, tickets will be sold at the door.

Information: William Ney, 262-2811, wney@facstaff.wisc.edu.