Thursday Night in University Hills: "American Sabor: Latinos in U.S. Popular Music" Exhibit's Closing Concert featuring Quetzal and Special Guests Cambalache at Cal State Los Angeles Music Building

(Videos courtesy Bob Ramirez)

Thursday Evening on the Lower East Side: Fiesta de Locos art show at the Clemente Soto Veléz Cultural and Educational Center

This evening the B24 bus to Marcy Avenue and the J train across the bridge to the Lower East Side took us to the amazing Clemente Soto Veléz Cultural and Educational Center

for the opening of the very cool Fiesta de Locos,

a wildly colorful display of animated styles of Latin-inspired artwork from LA, New York, San Francisco, and Puerto Rico.

The show's artists - Rimx,

Sofia Maldonado,

Cern,

Miguel Bounce Perez, and

Erin Yoshi -

represent roots in Latin America and have traveled extensively and contributed to mural art production in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Cuba. As the publicity stuff said, "Through intertwining graffiti aesthetics with Latino cultural symbolism and typology, narrative story telling, and hands on community workshops, the artists create vibrant visual representations of the dynamic cultural tapestry of Latin America, while reclaiming art space for public discourse."

The artists’ collaborative works were displayed in the downstairs gallery of the Clemente Soto Veléz Cultural and Educational Center,


with their individual artworks in the second floor Abrazo gallery.


Mikey 1Soul,

aka Conscious Hustler, of 1Soul Designs, was on hand screen-printing limited edition Fiesta Del Locos shirts, bags, and prints, custom made to order.

The DJs were Leydis, Trixter, Beto, SeanG and Cool Ray WesT.

We were really impressed with the artists' individual works, like Sofia Maldonado's "Paper doll 1" and Paper doll 2,"


Miguel Bounce Perez's spray enamel on bond paper "Broken Heart" and "Man with Hat & Ice Cream Cone Chin,"

"Skull with Diamond Head" and "Hassan with Beer & Cigarette,"

Cern's spray canvas "Mating Call," acrylic on canvas "Por Ayiti" (proceeds for its sale will be donated to Haiti earthquake relief), and spray canvas "Loving Universe,"

and his birds, as well as

Rimx's muy loco, tremendo loco works


and Yoshi's haunting acrylics and spray (and clay) works like "El Elephant" and "Sunshine"



It's a really great show you should get over to the Clemente Soto Veléz Cultural and Educational Center to see before it closes on May 14.

Sunday Afternoon in Williamsburg: El Puente's 22nd Annual Three Kings Day Celebration Show

We've just come back from El Puente's fabulous 22nd annual Three Kings Day celebration and a terrific afternoon of drama, music and dance at the Grand Street Campus High Schools.

Thanks to El Puente's Theresa Doherty, we got mailed our tickets while we were still in sunny and warm Phoenix earlier this week, because otherwise we couldn't have gotten in along with the hundreds of others into the campus's nicely-appointed auditorium for the 1 p.m. show.

We got there early (all of us were asked to bring a donation of a can or box of nonperishable food for to the Southside Mission Food Pantry to help to support its
life-saving work) and although we skipped an audience and photo session with the Three Kings, we did watch the kids 12 and under pose with them and receive brightly-wrapped gifts, courtesy of the Hispanic Federation and Councilmember Diana Reyna.

As we settled down to our seats with little ones on both sides of us, we admired the auditorium's murals and then focused on the sneak preview of the revived PBS Kids show Electric Company, an episode featuring high-tech prankster Manny Spamboni, played by the multi-faceted Dominic Colón, theater director of Teatro El Puente, who wrote today's show and directed it along with Piper Anderson, El Puente's arts coordinator.

This was the fourth year in a row Colón and Anderson wrote and directed the show (this year, with help from Sasha Dobos-Czarnocha), and it was funny, fast-moving, and filled with young talent. First, Frances Lucerna, El Puente's executive director, introduced the afternoon show (a second show is at 5 p.m.), giving us a little history about the 22 years of Día de los Reyes celebrations and thanking the Community Preservation Corporation and other sponsors of the event.

Then El Puente founder and president Luis Garden Acosta spoke, in both Spanish and English, about the ideals of community and how, in these difficult economic times, it's necessary to continue the fight for freedom and justice of the United States' own King, Martin Luther King Jr., whose birthday we celebrate tomorrow. At the mention of the next day's inauguration of President Barack Obama, the crowd applauded enthusiastically.

Finally, the house lights dimmed, and the show - "Latinoman, Defender of the Barrio" - began. It was an incredibly professional production, from the evocative sets to the flashy and well-styled costumes to the acting and amazing choreography.

The show was in the tradition of The Wizard of Oz and other fantasies involving adolescents who are magically whisked into an alternate reality and discover that the home they grumbled about was indeed the best place of all.

Rey (played by the talented Jose Morales), is a cranky adolescent who tells his sister, abuela and abuelo that he wants no part of the Three Kings Day holiday beloved by his much-missed late mother -- Rey says his friends think that his family celebrates January 6 because they're cheap and like to buy bargain gifts -- but once Rey gets transported into the world of a comic book superhero, Latinoman, thanks to his grandfather's present, he learns to appreciate his family and community's traditions.

With a giant Latinoman comic cover looming above (it looks remarkably like the work of Jack Kirby), Rey discovers himself in the very weird city of Billyburg, where the Mayor (Sean Carvajal) is a green-haired, chalk-white-faced, purple-gloved amalgam of the Joker and Michael Bloomberg, who plots to stop the traditional So'sida residents from celebrating Three Kings Day (their anti-traditional No'sida adversaries tend to wear outrageous hipsterish outfits) and get rid of the people's champion, superhero Latinoman.

The whole show works on several levels. For the kids, there is robust, rollicking comedy, but for some of the adults, the satire is sharp (the Joker-like Mayor, with the help of his aide Conalisa Lies [Rose Rivera], schemes to quickly get the City Council to let him keep his control over the city forever). Latinoman (Chris Then), in both his superhero outfit and in his secret identity as the laconic Tino, who befriends Rey, is refreshingly low-key.

The varied choreography by Ros Nash and Arkadiusz "Erock" Lesniak -- from very young kids dressed as angels accompanying Rey's now-angel mother (Nikaury Acosta, who earlier does a nice turn as Rey's abuela) in "on Angel's Wings" to amazing b-boying in several dances, including "Heroes vs. Evil: The Battle for 3 Kings," set to Hans Zimmerman's "Introduce a Little Anarchy" from the Dark Night soundtrack but reminiscent of the fight scenes in the campy 1960s Batman TV show - is so stunning that even the few squawling babies fell silent.

The lesson that one's community, culture and traditions are important goes down easily, and even a cynical adult never feels this production talks down to kids or skirts being saccharine. The show is never less than vibrant, even in its more serious moments, and it builds to a celebratory conclusion as Rey is transported back home to Brooklyn, now more than ready to join in his family's Three Kings Day celebration with his worldly-wise grandfather (author and co-director Dominic Colón).

The cast and crew and everyone associated with El Puente's Three Kings Day show well deserved the enthusiastic applause as they took their bows. It's wonderful that our community has so many talented people, young and not-so-young, who must have worked very hard for weeks to put on this production enjoyed by the hundreds of people there. Thanks to all.

It may be a little late, but ¡Feliz Día de los Tres Reyes Magos!