Thursday, July 30th @ 8 pm
Festival Opening
Main theatre
Oyu Oro (Cuba/NY)
Kicking off the Festival, New York-based masters of music and movement Oyu Oro bring Afro-Cuban folklore and faith to vibrant life through the inseparable trinity of dance, percussion, and song. In their dramatic dance performance “Ceremonial de la Danza,” Oyu Oro fuses Franco-Haitian Cubano rituals and Cuban popular music into a celebration of the island’s many-sided African heritage.
Join us afterward for a reception
Friday, July 31st @ 8.30 pm
Main theatre
Anna Saeki (Japan)
The world first learned of this stunning Hokkaido native’s uncanny talent for tango when she won a beauty pageant. But Saeki’s voice proved more potent than her good looks, as she won acclaim for her Buenos Aires-recorded debut and her work with Japan’s Orquesta del Sol, spurring a major boom in Latin music in her homeland.
Saturday, August 1st @ 3 pm
Main theatre
Explore the Andes through Instruments with Inti-Illimani
This free family-oriented workshop and performance will introduce music lovers of all ages to a stunning menagerie of wind, string, and percussion instruments that hail from the Andes. Hear what they sound like, learn how they are played, and discover where they come from first hand, guided by Chile’s best loved roots musicians.
Saturday, August 1st @ 8.30 pm
Main theatre
Inti-Illimani w/ special guest Francesca Gagnon (Chile/Canada)
Inti-Illimani took the traditional sounds of the Chilean Andes and infused them with progressive, rocking sensibility. Canadian singer Francesca Gagnon took the music of Alegria and transformed it into a striking sonic experience for Cirque de Soleil. Together, they interweave music from the experimental circus’ best-loved performances — Corteo, O, Kà, Saltimbanco, and Quidam — with Inti-Illimani’s beloved songs and repertoire in a heady mix spanning the continents and the human emotions. U.S. Premiere.
Sunday, August 2nd @ 3 & 7pm
Main theatre
Tola y Maruja (Columbia)
Imagine if Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert did their satirical take on current events dressed as two persnickety old ladies with kerchiefs and umbrellas. That might come close to capturing the unique style and popularity of Colombia’s beloved comedic personalities Tola y Maruja (performers Carlos Maria Gallego and Luis Alberto Rojas Ardila). This year they bring their pseudo-reality show “The World’s Ten Poorest, Including Tola y Maruja” to the Festival, a bittersweet and quirky exploration of how ten contestants would survive on Colombia’s minimum wage. (In Spanish)
Wednesday, August 5th @ 8.30 pm
Main theatre
The Golden Age (documentary in English and Spanish with subtitles)
Some of the middle-aged dishwashers, retailers, and tradesmen of Corona, Queens are living a double life: After a hard week’s work, these men from Central and South America dedicate themselves to their first passion, soccer. Former champions in their native lands looking back on their past glory, they now play hard in the Golden League. This full-length documentary chronicles a season in this highly competitive community, as well as the lives and dreams of its players.
Wednesday, August 5th @ 8.00 pm
Studio
Sabrina Lastman Quartet (Uruguay/Argentina/NY)
Lastman lives at the intersection of jazz, Afro-Uruguayan traditions like candombe, and the classics of Latin America’s greatest songwriters, organically uniting text, movement, and voice. Now based in New York, but formally trained in Israel as well as her native land, Lastman’s innovative perspective on her Latin roots is supported by a trio of Argentine jazz players, including neo-tango pioneer Pablo Aslan of Avantango. It resonates through original composition and thoughtful arrangements of works from Astor Piazzolla to Uruguay’s own Ruben Rada.
Wednesday, August 5th @ 7.00 pm
Cabaret
Open Mic Night hosted by Grito de Poetas (NYC)
A Festival tradition, aspiring poets are encouraged to come read their work at a bilingual evening guided by the vision and rhythms of Grito de Poetas, a diverse poetry collective that revels in the Latino community’s multifaceted oral traditions. Grito’s rappers, teachers, storytellers, and visionaries celebrate the beauty and power of the spoken word and their multicultural roots.
Thursday, August 6th @ 8.30 pm
Luis Garay and Buenos Aires Dance Company (Argentina)
For this year’s commissioned dance piece, a co-commission and co-presentation with LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, contemporary choreographer Luis Garay and dancer Florencia Vecino have created a new work especially for the Festival that explores philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein’s unexpected definition of the word “gag” as something which cannot be expressed or said. Garay and his company draw on gesture, text, live music, and a unique use of space to convey the mystery of this inexpressible moment. Also on the evening’s program is “Parto,” a semi-biographical piece investigating the intersection of sensation and memory. World Premiere.
Friday, August 7th @ 8.30 pm
Totó la Momposina (Colombia)
Totó la Momposina is the grandmother of Afro-Colombian song and dance, a tireless performer who brought the unmistakable rhythms of Colombia’s Caribbean coast to the world. Equally at home at a village street festival or in the halls of the Sorbonne, where she earned a degree in dance history, Totó never fails to deliver high-energy, highly creative renditions of five generations of traditions her family performed and loved. She is celebrating the U.S. release of her latest album “La Bodega” this summer.
Saturday, August 8th
Albita (Cuba/ Miami)
The daughter of famous singers, this Cuban diva made her long and hard way to Little Havana via Colombia and Mexico, and her elegant pop songs retain this international scope and appeal. Performing originals from her new CD Mis Tacones, Albita’s Festival appearance will showcase her songwriting skills and dynamic showmanship, and her ability to move hearts and bodies simultaneously.
Sunday, August 9th
Don Fallo Figueroa and Son Candela (Mexico)
Rafael “Don Fallo” Figueroa Aláves is an icon of Veracruz’s jarocho music, the coastal region’s snappy answer to mariachi with deep Afro-Mexican and indigenous roots. Don Fallo can move effortlessly from jarocho classics like “La Bamba” to 21st-century innovations that put a global spin on this age-old genre, including Figueroa’s own unique addition of the double bass. Joining him will be the up-and-coming Son Candela, the youthful torchbearers for the tradition.
Join us afterward for a reception
