La Ceiba Festival: Digital Experience of Music & Art Launches April 22
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Sacred Fruits. Soul Power. Spirit Roots.
La Ceiba Festival, sponsored by Initiatives of Change USA, brings Narrative Change and ARTivism together in a digital experience of Magical Resistance. La Ceiba is a series of multimedia events - live music performances, DJ parties, visual art exhibitions, masterclasses, film screenings, discussions and more - that will help us to connect and ground us to the earth, and one another in these unsettling times.
The La Ceiba Festival launches online on Earth Day, Wednesday April 22, 2020.
The festival, with a home base in Richmond, Virginia, engages local, national and global audiences around historical and deepening inequities and xenophobia, amplified by the spread of the COVID-19 virus. La Ceiba’s events and discussions also encourage narrative shifts occurring due to the "new normal” which the entire globe is navigating, and makes space for building new future visions.
La Ceiba Festival hopes to bring new ways to sustain ourselves mentally, physically and spiritually in this current reality.
La Ceiba Festival unfolds over the coming months and will illuminate the duality of narratives around identity and belonging, trauma and resilience; detention/ incarceration and liberation, joy and resistance; while creating space for healing and commemorating our collective global experience.
The festival’s name is inspired by La Ceiba (The Ceiba Tree), the sacred tree revered by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas and West African cultures for its spiritual and healing powers. In keeping with these traditions, La Ceiba signifies the roots and fruit, and its trunk is the music. Songs and drums are played under the tree to create a space of safety, unity and reconnection, even in the absence of physical contact with the ancestors. This festival invites audiences from all racial, cultural and religious backgrounds to take part, to face skewed narratives while activating little known ones; to make connections with others, to heal and take action.
During the global COVID-19 Pandemic, these powers of the sacred tree are needed. We need its nourishment, protection, transformation and liberation. We need hope that though our human existence is being strongly challenged, it is an opportunity to disrupt deeply flawed systems, and transform our society and ourselves.
Incantations and petitions will be received at the root of the tree.
COME JOIN US.
La Ceiba will launch on April 22, 2020 featuring these globally renowned musicians:
MARK DE CLIVE-LOWE, co-founder of a global music experience called CHURCH is the Headline Artist for the La Ceiba Festival. CHURCH brings artists and audiences together, in a ritual to heal through music and movement. De Clive-Lowe’s performances form the invocation calling other artists to participate in a series of live streaming performances, masterclasses, discussions and other activities throughout the globe. Associated artists with whom Mark has collaborated include Ms. Lauryn Hill, Jody Watley, Omar, Bugz in the Attic, 4Hero, Illa J and Miguel Atwood-Ferguson among many others. Mark’s work touches on his journey of identity and belonging, being of Japanese and New Zealander descent.
4/28: LIVE REMIX @ 9PM EST and 4/30: Masterclass @ 9PM EST
KARRIEM RIGGINS, originally from Detroit, Michigan, is a multi-instrumentalist, producer, songwriter and DJ, and Emmy-Award Winner. He has worked both as a solo artist, and collaborated with J Dilla, Slum Village, Erykah Badu, Common and August Greene. As a percussionist, Riggins has worked with artists including Oscar Peterson, Roy Hargrove, Esperanza Spalding, Norah Jones and Paul McCartney of The Beatles among countless others.
4/27: LIVE DJ SET @ 9PM EST
DJ SPINNA, is a legendary hip hop producer, from Brooklyn, NY best known for combining genres such as dance, hip-hop, funk, and soul. He has remixed artists such De La Soul, Mary J. Blige, Jody Watley, Stevie Wonder and Black Coffee and worked on tracks with Eminem, Pharoahe Monch, and Phonte. DJ Spinna, of Panamanian background, has also been a member of hip hop supergroup, Polyrhythm Addicts. He is renowned for co-creating traveling mega-dance parties including Soul Slam: Prince & Michael Jackson (with Keistar) and Wonder-full (with Bobbito).
4/29: LIVE DJ SET @ 9PM EST
Watch on Vimeo:
April 2020 is just the beginning of the La Ceiba Festival. Stay tuned for content updates over the coming months on the Initiatives of Change USA website and social media.
For inquiries about the festival, contact Alicia Aroche, Director of U.S. Programs, Racial Justice and Healing at alicia.aroche@iofc.org.
