|
contents | world | |||||||||||||
| Caribbean Festival 2006 20th Annual Caribbean Festival on the Great Plaza at Penn's Landing located at Columbus Boulevard and Chestnut Street will take place on August 20, 2006. This event is one of ten festivals in the PECO Multicultural Series and part of the 2006 summer season at Penn's Landing, presented by Independence Blue Cross. The Festival is a culturally rich celebration of 14 Caribbean Islands featuring a collage of sights, sounds and smells. With entertainment as the focal point of the event, the entire family will enjoy the authentic island sounds of Reggae, Roots International beat, Soca/Calypso, Hip-Hop, Gospel, creative dances, ethnic poetry, and educational activities. The Festival intends to recognize the Day as St. Vincent & the Grenadines. This year's musical entertainment line-up will feature: Jah Way, the St. Vincent & The Grenadines' Solid, Calvary Baptist Church's Youth Mass Choir; United Praise Dancers, the Vincie Women Skit, Axum Reggae band, LaTumba African/Caribbean Jazz ensemble, and Haitian Bizi band. The Festival will also feature Juliana Banton, 2006 Philadelphia Miss Caribbean presenting a Caribbean Court skit. Also at the Festival, Panamanian Uva LaPanna Poete will stir your soul with her Spoken Words, an inspiring style of word art that blends African consciousness, Spanish verses, and West Indian texture. Since dancing is an important part of Caribbean culture, the celebration also showcases a variety of dance forms, from folkloric to modern, including the versatile St. Lucian Dancer, Tania Isaac, the SOCA Dance Crew. Fragrant aromas will fill the Great Plaza as the vendors prepare a variety of tempting island cuisine for visitors to enjoy. The Caribbean fete will include escovitched fish and festival cakes, codfish fritters, Jamaican jerk-chicken and hard-dough bread, Jamaican Patties, curried goat and rice and peas, Trinidadian Roti, rotisserie-roasted corn, water coconut, as well as refreshing island beverages. At the Caribbean marketplace, visitors can browse displays of island fashions, souvenirs, and arts & crafts. In addition, the Caribbean Culture booth will compliment this year's event with featured topics about Caribbean history, fashion and religion. For the youngest attendees, the Festival offers a Caribbean Children's Village to teach children about the African-Caribbean culture awareness. This Festival, presented by PECO and the Caribbean Festival Committee, now in its 20th year, works to publicize the importance of the Islands and the cultural contribution of the Caribbean community to the Philadelphia region. Most importantly, the event raises scholarship funds for college students of Caribbean descent. Supporting the region's diversity has been a longstanding goal for PECO, who has sponsored the multicultural festivals at Penn's Landing for the past ten years. "All of us at PECO are thrilled to return again to the waterfront to support the multicultural festivals, " said PECO president Denis O'Brien. "Penn's Landing is a Philadelphia summertime tradition and the PECO Multicultural Series is a fun way for us to celebrate the wide range of diversity represented in our service territory." write your comments about the article :: © 2006 Jazz News :: home page |