Observer

Issue date: 10/13/08 Section: Page One

Media Credit: Sarah Rahman

Media Credit: Sheena Quashie , Managing Editor

Media Credit: Sarah Rahman

Media Credit: Sheena Quashie , Managing Editor

Culture was at every corner. As soon as the first beats of Latin music were heard in front of the Paul Robeson Campus Center on Oct. 8, students of Rutgers-Newark found themselves drifting towards the stage that resonated the sounds.

From the yellow marigolds heaped in a pile on stage, to students with Inca Kola soda in their hands, and to a towering brown puppet being put together, R-N was host to the Latino Arts Festival. The event featured dance performances, poetry, a puppet show, and of course, more and more music.

Hosted by Caridad de la Luz, who goes by the stage name of La Bruja, the first annual festival was held "to celebrate the rainbow of our culture," as Luz put it. The festival was free and open to the public, and various fraternities and sororities representing Hispanic and Latino students were present, as well as representation from the American Red Cross whose fliers cited the rate of AIDS, diabetes, and other health problems particularly affecting the Latino community.

Rhys Valmonte, a freshman at R-N, enjoyed most that the event "[brought] a lot of people to the campus together." The music, too, was widely enjoyed and people broke out into their own dance routines in front of the stage.

But aside from the jovial celebrations, director Laura Lomas explains that the festival was also meant to achieve another aim.

"The lack of a Latino Studies department is something of a glaring absence at Rutgers-Newark," said Lomas, program director of the festival and English professor at R-N. In Rutgers-New Brunswick, there are both a Latin American Studies and a Latino and Hispanic Caribbean Studies department, and Rutgers-Camden also has a Latin American Studies department. Lomas added that the lack of one on the Newark campus "needs proper recognition by the faculty."

An activist and Nuyorican poet, the term for second or third generation Puerto Ricans living in New York, Luz says she tries to bring her genre of poetry and music to a wider audience. The Nuyorican Poets Café in New York City, which she co-founded with fellow Nuyorican poets, is where Luz got her start.

Performers Manuel Gonzalez and Soraya Avrou opened the event with a salsa dance routine. La Bruja followed this by presenting a poem of hers entitled, "La Perla of the Caribbean," that expressed the culture and hardship of Latino life. She then gave the stage to the Lambda Sigma Upsilon Fraternity and their step routine. Without any music, Micahel Vastos and Josmar Tejedo performed their step dance. Then, as another member, Fernando Rosero joined, the troupe introduced machetes into their routine. As they challenged each other to do better moves, music was added to the variety.

After the fraternity members took their bows, La Bruja introduced Laurencio Carlos Ruiz, whose puppet show "Quenonamican" would tell the story of Mexican culture using Aztec mythology and its relation to the current Mexican immigrant experience in America. Ruiz, a professor of Theater and Integrative Arts at Pennsylvania State University, maneuvered the life size puppet and provided its voice.

Ruiz opened with a dance and when he began to speak, it was in the voice of Mictlan Tecutli, the Aztec god of the underworld. Ruiz told the audience that he "represents all the dead people, the people that never passed the border." As the puppet progressed in the monologue, he explained that Mexican-Americans visiting family members was like coming back from the dead. His purpose in coming here was to get across the hardship of those who did arrive. "I want to see my paysanos," said Ruiz, stressing the overall unity the community should feel.

The inspiration for this show came from Aztec and Mexican culture. On Nov 1 and 2 every year, the Day of the Dead is observed in Mexico, where among other things, the favorite dishes of dead family members are laid out.

"I want to explain myself, go back to my roots because I find the analogy of death and the immigrant very poetic," Ruiz said. He explained that when he moved to America, the crossing was like a death, since he had to begin an entirely new life here. Whenever he would return to visit family, his favorite dishes would be prepared.

The next act was a marinera routine, a dance that re-enacted courtship. With Manolo Bafauri in a wide-brimmed hat and beige outfit and Cynthia Hurtado in colorful layered skirts, the music speeded and slowed to their numerous pirouettes. The final dance routine consisted of two sisters performing festejo negro, an Afro-Peruvian dance. With bright smiles and white outfits in blue trim, the girls showed the audience their choreographed routine.

La Bruja closed the show with an introduction to her art. Identifying as a Nuyorican poet, a genre of poetry dealing with the Puerto Rican experience in New York, De la Luz also discussed her career as a hip-hop artist. "People told me that Latinos don't do hip-hop," she said, but this did not deter her from pursuing a career in music.

After this introduction to her roots and inspiration, she began singing portions of songs from her debut album, "Brujalicious." The songs varied from the political to the personal and switched between English and Spanish. Before singing a reggaeton song, she said, "I want to make reggaeton that makes you feel good as a woman."

The genre is frequently criticized for its depiction of women as sexual objects. Her homage to Madonna in "La Isla Bonita" and her call to activism in "Keep it Movin' Like" captured the celebration of Latino culture and the need to solve problems affecting the community.

After the success of the Latino Arts Festival Josmar Tejeda, a junior at the New Jersey Institute of Technology and one of the performers at the festival, has but one complaint.

"I wish it was longer," he says. "At night-time more groups would be able to come out and people could stay longer. We'd love to do it again and make it bigger."

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