|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
A Taste of Africa festival returns for its 13th year this weekend in Livermore. (Photo courtesy Cheza Nami) 
Music, dance, performances celebrating Filipino culture entertain audiences at Barrio Fiesta. (Photo courtesy Livermore Fil-Am) 
A Taste of Africa exposes festival attendees to various cultures within the African diaspora. (Photo courtesy Cheza Nami) 
The Barrio Fiesta features a “SkratchFight” turntable community session. (Photo courtesy Livermore Fil-Am) 
Performances will take place on the main stage throughout the entire day at A Taste of Africa this Saturday. (Photo courtesy Cheza Nami) 
Food vendors representing various cultures will be on-site at both Barrio Fiesta and A Taste of Africa this weekend. (Photo courtesy Livermore Fil-Am)
The first weekend of October is kicking off with a bang as back-to-back events are taking over the Bankhead Plaza downtown Livermore, celebrating the African diaspora and Filipino-American culture.
A Taste of Africa returns for its 13th year this Saturday (Oct 4). The event hosted by nonprofit Cheza Nami invites the community each year to experience a glimpse of African history and customs through food, dance, educational activities and music.
“Having access to culture that we typically wouldn’t see unless we traveled to all of these different countries — and being of African descent myself — it’s really important to have that closeness to heritage,” Cheza Nami founder Ciiku Ndungu-Case told Livermore Vine in an interview.
“And it’s so wonderful to see other families year over year bring their little ones and we’re now seeing some of those little ones that are coming back volunteering or performing and just kind of taking charge of keeping the traditions alive,” she added.
While the family-friendly, all-day event is set to bring back its annual traditions including face-painting for children, an African marketplace and art displays, Ndungu-Case said that this year’s event will also feature pop-up dance workshops on the main stage throughout the day dubbed the Moving Together Studio.
“All day, we will have master teachers who are sharing their own individual cultures and the community is welcome to come and be in an open air dance studio to try out different dance styles of different traditions of the African diaspora,” Ndungu-Case said, adding that the workshops are open to all ages and prior dance experience is not required.
A Taste of Africa is also bringing back its popular Kid Zone with a reading corner, crafts and interactive instrument exploration. The activities in the Kid Zone are facilitated by youth volunteers from the Pleasanton Unified School District, Ciiku Ndungu-Case said.
The festival itself is scheduled to run from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday; however, Ndungu-Case said the celebration doesn’t end there. An after party is set to take place just down the street at Little India Restaurant & Bar immediately following the close of the festival.
Folks have a few hours to go home and get some sleep before the party continues into the next day with the Barrio Fiesta hosted by the Livermore Filipino-American Organization.
Although they are separate events hosted by different organizations, A Taste of Africa and Barrio Fiesta share a number of resources including staging and equipment rentals in the interests of cost savings and community collaboration as well as to help make the quick transition from one event to the next as smooth as possible.
In celebration of Filipino-American History Month, Barrio Fiesta is “the biggest, brightest, and only celebration of the Filipino American community in the Tri-Valley area,” according to Livermore Fil-Am’s website.
Like A Taste of Africa, Barrio Fiesta is free and family-friendly. This year’s festival is scheduled from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday (Oct. 5).
Community organizer and Livermore Fil-Am president Arthur Barinque — who is also contracted by the Bankhead to help produce and facilitate events — told Livermore Vine that attendees can anticipate many of the activities from past years back again this year, including performances, a mobile skate park, break dancing competition, a scavenger hunt and of course a vendor market featuring food, crafts, games, educational materials and other offerings.
“This is the first year that Livermore Fil-Am is actually producing, without the help of the Bankhead, etc., and we’ve been able to get sponsorships to keep this afloat and grants and I’m just thankful that that is coming in,” Barinque said of the community support that is helping bring Barrio Fiesta to life this year.
The event will take place in the Bankhead Plaza and expand to the adjacent parking lot, creating more room for new vendors, according to Barinque.
Attendees come to Barrio Fiesta from all over the Bay Area, but Barinque said he hopes to draw a lot more Tri-Valley residents to the event this year.
“I really want to focus on the Tri-Valley and bringing the Tri-Valley out because it’s local for everyone, they don’t have to go so far,” Barinque said, adding that there are many Filipino-American History Month celebrations spread across other communities. “I really want to activate the locals because that’s what’s going to drive this thing home,” he added.
While expressing excitement for another packed weekend of events, Ndungu-Case also acknowledged the financial challenges the arts community and the nonprofit world have been faced with and how these cherished celebrations could be impacted.
“The future of cultural programs as we know it — we don’t know what that future looks like,” she said. “This year was especially difficult for us to be able to pull it through and we don’t know what next year holds. So, we hope that we can rely on the support of community members who see the value in public programming and cultural programs in our communities and that they’d be willing to come and partner with us to continue this tradition.”
More information about A Taste of Africa is available at chezanami.org and additional details about Barrio Fiesta can be found at livermorefilam.org.
