The Latin American Arts Festival (LatinFest) is a multidisciplinary celebration of music, art, film, dance, theater, literature and culture. Its mission is to promote artistic diversity, raise intercultural and intersectional awareness, expose social issues, and challenge stereotypes about Latinxs and Latin America in the school and community.
The LatinFest was born out of the need of representation and exposure of Latin American Art at CalArts and the community at large. This student-lead project was initiated by Diana Teixeira and Eloy Neira (Peru); Emilia Moscoso (Ecuador), Lucas Longaresi (Brazil); Vivian Naranjo (Chile), Leila Jay, Rafael Luna and Rosa Boshier (USA); and Pablo Leñero (Mexico).
The festival not only promotes traditional art forms, but also challenges them and exposes new ones. Organizers strive for the decolonization of the arts, the mind, and the body— questioning what it means to be Latinx while confronting embedded cultural issues such as machismo, xenophobia and aporophobia.
THURSDAY, MARCH 7TH
STUDIO VISITS BY CAROLINA CAYCEDO AND LAURA MOLINA
10:00am. School of Art
Visiting artists Carolina Caycedo and Laura Molina visit the studios of current CalArts students. This event is not open to the public.
LAROYE AÑA, AFRO-CUBAN DANCER.
12:00pm – 1:00pm. Main Gallery.
Indira Leneman, known as Laroye Aña, was born and raised in Havana, Cuba. She has studied genres including ballet, modern, contemporary, hip-hop, Afro-Cuban, flamenco, Afro-Brazilian, and Haitian. She has also performed in companies including Compañia de Teatro y Danza Tony Menendez, Compañia de Danza Moderna Comtemporanea y Folklor Narciso Medina, as well as in several Cuban TV programs. From 2010 until she left Cuba in 2017, she was a dancer for Compañia de Ballet y Espectaculos Tropicana (also known as Cabaret Tropicana). Since moving to Los Angeles, she joined the Viver Brasil dance company and performed in the 2017 and 2018 “¡Viva Navidad!” shows at Disneyland. As an instructor, she taught Cuban salsa and Afro-Cuban dances in the annual dance and music festival ‘Baila en Cuba’ 2012 through 2016, and has been teaching private and weekly studio classes in these genres. In 2018, she taught several dance classes at California State University Fullerton. Batá Drums players include guest artist Kristin Olsen and CalArts students Chance Utter, Anthony Landers, and Diana Teixeira.
DIF/ABILITY DANCE WORKSHOP
1:30PM – 3:30PM. ROOM A203.
Part of the ArtChangeUs series of dance workshops and roundtable discussions with artists who navigate the art world as disabled creators, award-winning Deaf producer/choreographer/dancer/Deaf advocate Antoine Hunter will present a dance and choreography workshop followed by a series of artist presentations and roundtable discussions on art, accessibility, and equity with Hunter, comedian Danielle Perez, and visual artist Jaklin Romine, moderated by actor Diana Elizabeth Jordan. These artists will share processes in their practices and experiences as people holding intersectional marginal identities. They will expand on the ways their identities influence their art and engagement with their respective fields.
A Bay Area native, Hunter is an award-winning African-American Deaf producer, choreographer, film/theater actor, dancer, dance instructor, model, poet, speaker, mentor, and Deaf advocate. Hunter received his training in dance and acting at Skyline High School in Oakland, CA, CalArts, and the Paul Taylor Dance School in New York City. The founder and artistic director of Urban Jazz Dance, Hunter has performed with Savage Jazz Dance Company, Nuba Dance Theater, Alayo Dance Company, Robert Moses’ KIN, Man Dance, Sins Invalid, Amara Tabor-Smith, Kim Epifano, Push Dance Company, Fly Away Productions, Joanna Haigood, OET theater, and the Lorraine Hansberry Theater. He has performed throughout the Bay Area and the world including Cuba, Rome, Hawaii, Peru and London. Hunter is a faculty member at East Bay Center for the Performing Arts, Shawl-Anderson, Youth in Arts and Dance-A-Vision. He is the founder of Iron Tri-Angel Urban Ballet in Richmond, was an instructor and rehearsal director for the Ross Dance Company, dance captain for Expedia.com commercials and was head Choreographer director for an Philippines’s Musical “Amerikana-The Musical”. while he love doing short films and long films plus music videos, he was Head Choreographer for D-PAN: Deaf Professional Arts Network ASL Music Video: “Call Me Maybe” by Carly Rae Jepsen.
DIF/ABILITY ROUND TABLE
4:00pm – 5:30pm. Langley Hall.
With ArtChangeUS guest artist Antoine Hunter, Jaklin Romine, and Danielle Perez. Moderated by Diana Elizabeth Jordan.
CAROLINA CAYCEDO AND LAURA MOLINA
5:00pm – 7:00pm. John Baldessari Studios
Carolina Caycedo (1978, lives in Los Angeles) was born in the UK to Colombian parents. She transcends institutional spaces to work in the social realm, where she participates in movements of territorial resistance, solidarity economies, and housing as a human right. Carolina’s artistic practice has a collective dimension to it in which performances, drawings, photographs and videos are not just an end result, but rather part of the artist’s process of research and acting. Through work that investigates relationships of movement, assimilation and resistance, representation and control, she addresses contexts, groups, and communities that are affected by developmental projects, like the constructions of dams, the privatization of water, and their consequences on riverside communities.
Laura Molina’s distinct style is very much influenced by art associated with the Chicano Movement of the 1960s, Mexican culture, especially Frida Kahlo, 20th century Mexican Calendar artist Jesus Helguera, and the British Pre-Raphaelites.
Her projects have included the Naked Dave series of paintings and a self-published comic book, ‘Cihualyaomiquiz, The Jaguar‘. She was an Artist-in-Residence at Self Help Graphics & Art from 1993 through 1995 and participated in the Screen Print Atelier in 2003 and 2006. “She was a woman with great artistic talent”, says Barney Dino. In 2006 Molina founded Chicano Art Magazine and served as its first Editor-in-Chief. She has been quoted as saying on her art: “I will use my activism and creativity to end racism, sexism, and patriarchy at both a social and interpersonal level. I do not accept a hierarchy of genders because there is no justifiable basis for it and it does not serve me as a woman.”
Lecture topic TBD.
INDIGENOUS SONORITIES AND THE SACRED LANDSCAPE
LECTURE BY VERONICA PACHECO, CALARTS FACULTY
6:00pm – 7:00pm. Langley Hall.
The Nahua Indigenous people of Chicontepec, Veracruz, Mexico perform longstanding religious celebrations that attempt to control the weather and secure their subsistence in the area. The sound of string instruments, rattles, bells, and whistles call for the congregation to engage in their duties and invite deities that inhabit the natural landscape to share a meal. This presentation considers Indigenous knowledge and, in particular, music, sound and mythical stories as mediators of the principles that govern social relationships and further people’s interactions with the sacred landscape that include mountains, springs, and caves. In the 21st century, Chicontepec is well connected to the global world through Tv and the Internet. It also has a large percentage of the population migrating to cities in Mexico and the U.S. Still, Indigenous knowledge functions to protect and sustain life in the area, which further represents a mechanism against assimilation with the mainstream society where foreign economic models dictate a way of living
Professor at both UCLA and CalArts, Veronica Pacheco specializes in ritual music of the indigenous people in Mexico and the relevance of culture for sustainable development. She has published on the historical narratives and participatory aspects of musical performances. Her interests have led her to conduct research on Bedouin women’s music in Israel, Chilean emigrants in Canada, and Huaves, Nahua and Chontal communities in Mexico. She is an active member of the Jaranero community of Southern California.
SHORT FILMS BY LATINX STUDENTS AND FACULTY
7:00pm – 10:00pm. Bijou Theater
Faculty Documentaries:
‘Finding Shelter’ dir. Marisa Chibas. Followed by Q&A.
‘¿Por qué el recuerdo?’ dir. Juan Pablo Gonzales.
‘Las Nubes’ dir. Juan Pablo Gonzales.
Student Films & Animations:
‘How to make a Ghost,’ dir. Gabriela Escovar
‘And I,’ dir. Gabriela Escovar
‘MachisNo,’ dir. Mia Hernandez
‘Pal Carajo,’ dir. Mia Hernandez
‘(un)MUTE,’ dir. Leonardo Pirondi
‘Miau,’ dir. Ursula Echeverria
‘What Really Matters,’ dir. Ursula Echeverria
‘Gotitas,’ dir. Daniela Montaño
‘Momo el Mimo,’ dir. Daniela Montaño
‘El Cuco’, dir. Lucia Cordero
EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC PERFORMANCES
8:00pm – 9:00pm. African Room / Little Ghana.
Program TBA. Featuring CalArts students and alumni Rafael Luna, Solomon Newbon, Emmy Jones, and Martin Velez.
GALLERY NIGHT PERFORMANCES
10:00pm – 1:00am. Main Gallery.
Floración Fashion Show
Featuring original designs inspired by the flora of Latin America with music by Gui Spina, mixing Brazilian-urban sounds and electronic music.
CalArts Salsa Band
Led by pianist and jazz program chair David Roitstein, it’s impossible not to move to this 11-piece salsa band and there’s no better way to celebrate the last party of LatinFest. Their sound will fill the room and your heart. You’ll be in love by dawn.
‘Latin Brown Boy of the Bourgeoisie’, by Ivan Brizuela.
Puro Parti!!! with DJ Ruben Rubio.
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