Crowds Flock to Presencia Latina

This weekend, members of Harvard’s Latino community took nearly 500 people on a guided tour through a day and night in Latin-American culture.

The third annual Presencia Latina show had two performances on Saturday, featuring dance, song, and spoken word by Harvard students and Latinos from the greater Boston area.

A team of roughly 15 Harvard College students and alums produced the show, led by producer and President of Fuerza Latina Felipe A. Tewes ’06.

The show’s cost was roughly $2500, Tewes said, and was subsidized by the Harvard Foundation, the Undergraduate Council, the Office for the Arts at Harvard, and the Student Activities Fund.

The show took the audience from one Latin-American morning to the next, visiting the day’s festivals and night’s parties along the way.

The two performances, one in the afternoon and one in the evening, were geared towards slightly different audiences. The afternoon show featured La Piñata, a children’s performance group out of Boston that performed traditional dances from Mexico and the Caribbean islands.

The audience, which filled up half of Lowell Lecture Hall, cheered particularly loudly for one male dancer who was only seven years old.

In the sold-out evening performance, which Tewes writes in an e-mail was “aimed at a more adult audience,” La Piñata’s two pieces were replaced by a documentary and a “multi-media modern dance and art piece.”

Other performances featured in both shows were Mariachi Veritas—comprised of the traditional mariachi instrumentation of violins, trumpets, guitars, and vocals—Candela Hip Hop, a dance group that presents a variety of Latin-American dance styles, and dancers Anya Dolganov ’05 and Eric Price ’05, who combined a multitude of techniques in the creation of their “Gypsy Dance”.

There was also an original spoken word piece by Leyla R. Bravo ’06 and an excerpt from Ralph Ellison’s “The Invisible Man” read by host Omar A. Urquidez ’05, along with other original, contemporary, and traditional acts.

Both the set and the costumes reflected a flair for brilliant colors. From the traditional Mexican costumes of Ballet Folklorico de Aztlan to the flashy Brazilian-flag wear of Candela Hip Hop, performers were radiantly attired. The set designed by Illiana C. Quimbaya ’05 featured the flags of Latin America, as well as some palm trees to add to the outdoor night-club motif of the second half of the show.

Tewes said Presencia Latina “began as an idea in a Fuerza Board meeting” but after its inaugural show it became a separate organization, under the guidance of creator Eileen Plaza ’03, in order to promote participation by all six Harvard Latino groups.

Tewes anticipates next year’s show to be both bigger and more diverse. The possibilities of a featured guest-performer and a non-student Master of Ceremonies have also been discussed, Tewes said.