CEDB Mini-Grant 1

Cultural and Ethnic Diversity Board Mini-GrantApplication for $2,500

Latin American Arts FestivalApril 23-29, 2012

1. Main Organizer: Edward McLean Test, English Department, tel: 426-2138, email: edwardtest@boisestate.edu

2. This project was first conceived in 2011 with the objective of bringing the culture of Latin America (including Mexico) to Boise. The audience for these free public events came from the Boise metro area and Hispanic communities (with assistance from the Mexican Consulate, we advertised in Spanish on local radio broadcasts). The goals for this year are to expand on last year’s success, incorporate more of the Boise community, and reach out to the Hispanic, Jewish (we will be showing a film by a Mexican-Jewish director), and disabled communities (Mario Bellatín is missing an arm). Please see the addendum to this application for a detailed biography of each participant.

Events to take place between April 23-29, 2012

SCHEDULE

EVENT/FORMAT PLANNED VENUEDay 1 : Film Nora's Will, with director Mariana Chenillo Egyptian Theater

Format: Film screening, Introduction by DirectorQ&A after film

Day 2 : Theater Rafael Sanchez Navarro and Marina de Tavira Spec Center (BSU)Format: Master class for theater students

and evening performanceDay 3 : Poetry Orlando Gonzalez-Esteva Yanke Center (BSU)

Format: Public lectures during dayPoetry reading in evening (bi-lingual)

Day 4 : Fiction Mario Bellatín and Martin Solares The CabinFormat: Public lectures during day

Fiction reading in eveningDay 5 : Fiction Mario Bellatín The Cabin

Format: Public lectures during dayFiction reading in evening

Day 6 : Arts Salvador Acevedo Alaskan Center Format: Public lecture on Hispanic Arts outreach

Exhibition by local Hispanic ArtistsWorkshop for Boise Arts Institutions

Day 7 : Music Gil Gutierrez and Charlie Bisharat Spec Center (BSU)Format: Master class during day

Evening Concert

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3. The Second Annual Latin American Arts Festival realtes to the mission and goals of CEDB in many ways. This week-long festival is coordinated by a joint effort between Boise State University and the Mexican Consulate. The event reaches an audience throughout the Boise metro area, including the underrepresented disabled (one of the authors, Mario Bellatín, has one arm) and Hispanic communities (some of the events are in Spanish, and many will be bi-lingual). This event is currently being co-sponsored by the Mexican Consulate, and a number of BSU organizations, departments, colleges and programs. The event touches on several elements of the humanities; including international relations, language and literature, sociology, political theories and history. The visiting participants come from Mexico, Peru, and the United States, and will be giving public performances, lectures, and master classes. While the entire event also includes artists, we are seeking funding for the following participants: Salvador Acevedo, Latino community outreach (San Francisco/Mexico); Orlando Gonzalez-Esteva, poet (Cuba); Martin Solares, writer (Mexico); and Mario Bellatín, writer (Mexico/Peru). The Boise community does not currently have a festival of this scope. In addition to public performances, the participants will visit classes, give master-classes in music free to students.

4. It serves to bridge the Hispanic and North American cultures, especially through the bilingual presentations. This event helps educate the Boise community about Latino culture, which is the largest growing population segment in Idaho. Last year’s event was widely attended; there was unanimous praise (by the public and participants), and an overwhelming desire to have another festival. In short, this international festival brings the world to Boise and fills a gap in cultural awareness that is not currently present in Idaho.

5. The event reaches an audience throughout the Boise metro area, including the underrepresented disabled (one of the authors, Mario Bellatín, has one arm) and Hispanic communities (some of the events are in Spanish, and many will be bi-lingual). And, of course, the student body of BSU.

6. Last year, over 700 people attended the various events. This year we expect over 1,000.

7. Total Budget for the event is projected to be $19,208. The events will be free to BSU students (including arrangements being made with the Egyptian theater and The Cabin). I am applying for $2,500 from CEDB for this event. The detailed budget is as follows:

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ExpensesHonorariums Mariana Chenillo (director) 1,500 Marina de Tavira (actress) - Rafael Sanchez Navarro (actor) 1,000 Mexicanto 4,000 Salvador Acevedo (Arts Consultant) 1,000 Orlando Gonzalez-Esteva (poet) 2,000 Mario Bellatin 2,500 Martin Solares 2,500 - Event Costs Parking Spec Center, 1 event 50 Parking Yanke Center, 3 events 105 Table Rental, 2 events 120 Spec Center Av-Tech, 1 event 158 Nora's Will Film showing rights 275 Egyptian Theater, 1 event 1,500 The Cabin (2 events) 1,000 Promotion 500 Meals, Receptions 1,000 TOTAL EXPENSES 19,208

8. The primary sponsoring organizations are the Mexican Consulate and Boise State University. The support from the University crosses a remarkable spectrum; more specifically: the English, Modern Languages, and Political Science Departments; the Colleges of Arts and Sciences and Social Sciences and Political Affairs; the International Learning Opportunities Office; Extended Studies; ASBSU, Organizacion de Estudiantes Latino-Americanos, Boise State Linguistics Association, the English Majors Association, Idaho Humanities Council, Idaho Commission for the Arts, the Boise State Arts and Humanities Institute, and the Division of Research.

9. The marketing plan for this festival has been designed to reach local and regional audiences with a general interest in the visual and performing arts, and a more specific interest in Latin American arts, history, politics, and culture. The target audience is the general public and also the underserved Hispanic and disabled communities in Idaho. Our specific promotional efforts will include:

small posters listing a calendar of events to be posted in venues throughout Boise (print run, 150)

small post cards for individual events (print run, 200) Two press releases, one through Boise State University

Communications and Marketing Office, and another via the Mexican Consulate, sent out to regional newspapers, magazines, and radio programs.

Facebook web page listing bios of participants and a calendar of events.

Mexican Consulate Web page listing calendar of events

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Public radio and television stations will be contacted to encourage their coverage of the event, and promote interviews of any of the participants.

Hispanic Radio (with Spanish language advertisements of the event)

Cronin & Associates have offered free services for promoting the event, including writing press releases, organizing radio and television interviews, and contacting other local media.

Through the support of the BSU’s Extended Studies Program, school groups and teachers will be encouraged to attend.

10. The data collected from this event will be primarily in the form of digital video recordings to be posted on the internet. The author Mario Bellatín is very interested in a long term writing project on the death of Hemingway, which the festival will help facilitate by organizing a trip to visit Hemingway’s house in Ketchum, and inviting him to present this new work at the Hemingway Symposium in 2012.

Several evaluation/assessment techniques will be used to evaluate the success of the project:

o Attendance records will be kept.o Questionnaire/Comment forms will be provided for some of the eventso Facebook site will encourage comments (last year the event showed up on

some Twitter sites as being heartily recommended).o Participants will be asked to provide a short written evaluation their

experience.o Students who attend the events will provide their professors with written

responses

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Addendum: Biographies of Participants

Marina de Tavira, actress (Mexico)

Marina de Tavira is a Mexican theater and film actress. Since she was very young she has been in contact with acting through her uncle, Luis de Tavira, who is renowned director of theater and later became her teacher. Her career as an actress began in the world of theater, and it is the discipline of acting on stage that she enjoys the most. In 2005, she had her first role in a major film production, "Hijas de su madre: Las Buenrostro.” Shortly thereafter, in 2006,

she was the protagonist in the romantic comedy, “Efectos Secundarios.” This was the first Mexican film produced by Warner Brothers. In 2007, she acted in the drama, “La Zona,” which will be presented at BSU.

Martin Solares (Mexico)Mexican writer, critic and editor, he received the Efraín Huerta National literary Award in 1998. The 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction laureate, Junot Díaz, praises his work as "brilliant, but mostly unavailable in English". Solares has worked as an editor for several publishing houses and by the late 2000s he was completing a doctorate in Iberian and Latin American Studies at the University of Paris I. The Black Minutes, Solares' first novel (Spanish: Los minutos negros) is a crime fiction thriller that, according to a book review

published at The New York Times by Larry Rohter, it is reminiscent of Roberto Bolaño's 2666 or Paco Ignacio Taibo II's detective stories; claiming that "he employs some flourishes that would seem to situate him in the postmodernist camp, including the occasional surrealistic episodes and his habit of mixing real and fictional characters." In an interview with The Times, Junot Díaz expressed that The Black Minutes "is Latin American fiction at its pulpy phantasmagorical finest, [..] a literary masterpiece masquerading as a police procedural and nothing else I’ve read this year comes close. Solares does for Latin American literature what Eduardo Lago

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did for Iberian literature with his monumental novel Llámame Brooklyn.” The novel has been published in Spanish, English and German.

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Mario Bellatín (Mexico/Peru)

Mario is a novelist. He was born in Mexico, but grew up in Peru as the son of Peruvian parents. He spent two years studying theology at the seminary Santo Toribio de Mogrovejo and graduated from the University of Lima. In 1987, Bellatin moved to Cuba, where he studied screenplay writing at the International Film School Latinoamericana. On his return to Mexico in 1995, he became the director of the Department of Literature and Humanities at the

University of the Cloister of Sor Juana and became a member of the National System of Creators of Mexico from 1999 to 2005. He is currently the director of the School of Writers Dynamics in Mexico City. His work is widely known and distributed, with translations into English, German and French. Bellatin is celebrated as a leading voice in Spanish fiction for his experimental and fragmented writing, which artfully intertwines reality and creation. As a result of a birth defect that left him missing much of his right arm, a good portion of his fiction concerns characters that are deformed or diseased or with an uncertain sexual identity. Bellatin was quoted in the New York Times as saying, "To me literature is a game, a search for ways to break through borders. But in my work the rules of the game are always obvious, the guts are exposed, and you can see what is being cooked up.” He has received a National Book Award, Sponsored by Municipal Institute of Culture, Tourism and Art of Mazatlan, 2008; and a Guggenheim grant, 2002.

Mexicanto, guitarists (Mexico)

Mexicanto is a famous Mexican guitar duo. They began in 1985 and consist of Sergio Felix and David Filio. Over the years they have recorded 11 albums, appeared on television, and given many concerts. They are known throughout Latin America as part

of the “trova” tradition, which has its roots in Cuba.

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Rafael Sanchez Navarro, actor (Mexico)Rafael Sánchez Navarro (born 1958), is a famous Spanish-Mexican actor. He is the son of Manolo Fábregas, a famous actor from Spain who established himself in Mexico. Sanchez Navarro reached celebrity status when he played Santiago Ugalde, a criminal millionaire and show business promoter, in 1994's Volver a Empezar. The show became such a major hit that it gave Sanchez Navarro fame in places such as Argentina,

Puerto Rico, the United States, Israel and Russia.

Orlando Gonzalez-Esteva, poet (Cuba)

Orlando Gonzales-Esteva was born in Cuba in 1952. He lives in Miami since 1965. He has published severals books of poems and essays in the United States, Mexico and Spain. González Esteva's work has been celebrated by the late Mexican poet Octavio Paz, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1990, and some of Cuba's foremost poets. "González Esteva's poems

immediately impressed me for their inventiveness, their freshness, their effrontery and rigor ", wrote Paz. González Esteva's intense and long dedication to projects that enhance a better apreciation of Cuban culture has made him well known to his fellow countrymen. He has a vast experience as author of numerous and original scripts for radio and stage, and as producer of recitals of Cuban popular songs. His literary achievements were celebrated by the Miami Book Fair International in 1999.

Salvador Acevedo, Arts Marketing (San Francisco)

Salvador Acevedo is principal and president of Contemporánea, and he has spent more than 15 years designing and implementing successful communication strategies as a marketing consultant, executive, and researcher. Being bilingual and bicultural, he has helped organizations and corporations build bridges with the Latino community, aiding in their development and business opportunities. Some of his clients include San Francisco

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Museum of Modern Art, the California Academy of Sciences, NASA-UC Berkeley, San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau, Sonoma County Economic Development Board, Wells Fargo, Comcast, and Macy’s West, among others. He received the 2008 Latino Business Leadership Awards, presented by the San Francisco Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, San Francisco Business Times, and Wells Fargo.

Mariana Chenillo, Director (Mexico)

Mariana Chenillo graduated from the CCC of Mexico City in 1995, where she specialized in film directing. She then worked as script girl, first assistant director and production manager under several film directors. She has taught at CCC since 2005 and has also served as a counselor in the area of direction and direction assistance. Nora's Will is her first feature film as director and writer. (In this picture, Chenillo receives the Best Director Award at the 31st Moscow

International Film Festival, 2009)