YOUNGSTOWN Area Cuban arts festival to be held at YSU

The festival could demystify Cuba by offering samples of Afro-Cuban music, film, technology, literature, politics and food.
By DEBORA SHAULIS
ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR
YOUNGSTOWN -- Fusion has produced the first Afro-Cuban Arts Festival at Youngstown State University.
The festival was founded on a fusion of ideas. Dr. Glenn Schaft, director of percussion studies at YSU's Dana School of Music, had coordinated a Latin Percussion Day here last spring. He was approached a few months later by two persons who wanted to expand on his idea and celebrate Cuban culture.
The festival's purpose is fed by an infusion of Hispanic people into the United States population and a desire at YSU to connect with minority students. According to national Census 2000 figures, 35.3 million -- or roughly 13 percent -- of residents are Hispanic or Latino. Government projections through 2005 forecast a steady increase in the Hispanic population and a decrease among whites.
Crowning event: Fusion also describes the concert that will cap off the two-day festival Saturday night. In performing folkloric Afro-Cuban music, YSU student musicians will improvise with guest artist Ruben Alvarez of Chicago -- a Latin percussion expert -- and dancers who will be led by Afro-Cuban dance teacher and Youngstown native Jim Lepore.
Other aspects of the festival include film, a Cuban arts technology fair, literature, politics and cuisine.
Schaft, who has studied Afro-Cuban drumming, is looking forward to the unscripted concert.
"To me it seems like the ultimate balance of joyful, spirited music and singing," Schaft said. "The people just seem so happy when they're playing the music, dancing to the music. It feels great to dance to. The whole salsa craze is sweeping the country now. The Hispanic population is going up in the U.S. I see it becoming more a part of our culture.
Inspired play: "I get the same kind of good feeling playing the Afro-Cuban music that I get playing jazz, where there's a lot of interaction among musicians, a lot of improvisation."
Hand-drumming isn't usually taught in American schools, Schaft said. His students need this experience as well as classical training. "It kind of opens them up to a new aspect of music, new way of playing ... [that] they transfer what they learn on those Cuban instruments to the other instruments we play is really helpful," he said.
Alvarez's presence here and the talent of YSU's musicians should add up to a concert of big-city proportions. "You're going to see something that you can see only in places like New York and San Francisco," said Dr. Ivania del Pozo of YSU's department of foreign languages and literature.
Del Pozo was born in Camguey, Cuba. She and Mark Knowles, formerly of YSU's language lab, encouraged Schaft to organize this festival.
Del Pozo is on sabbatical, researching a revival in Cuban literature and poetry since the collapse of the Soviet Union and Cuba's loss of Soviet subsidies.
The festival may be the first exposure to Afro-Cuban culture for many people here. One effect of the U.S.'s long-standing trade embargo is that, to Americans, Cuba remains a mysterious Caribbean island nation. That cuts both ways.
"This embargo is sad for the people in Cuba," del Pozo said.
Medical viewpoint: Dr. Milton Sanchez-Parodi of Poland, one of many festival sponsors, will speak on health care for Cuba's children and how that benefits the arts community. Cuba has a national health care plan, so preventative medicine -- especially vaccines -- is readily accessible yet not taken for granted, he said.
This is the first time in the 14 years that Sanchez-Parodi has lived here that a Cuban-American event is originating from American culture. "As a Cuban American, I thought it would be a good opportunity for me to participate and to help" foster understanding between cultures, he said.
Cuban organizations in Cleveland and Pittsburgh have expressed interest in the festival, which leads Schaft to believe that it has room to grow. "I think it could turn into something really ... wide-ranging. Whether it would happen at YSU or somewhere else or wherever, I don't know ... I think there's a lot of potential there," he said.
Del Pozo wants to bring Cuban artists to Youngstown for next year's event. "This is just the beginning," she said.