Wilson Plaza is diving under the sea this Saturday to celebrate mermaids, water spirits and the environment.
The Fowler Museum at UCLA, with the help of Community Arts and Resources (CARS), is holding “Splash! A Celebration of Mermaids and the Sea.” The festival will be held on Saturday, April 19 and will promote healthy environmental practices, celebrate the cultures of Congolese and Afro-Brazilian dance and music troupes, and delve into the history of Mami Wata, a water spirit symbolizing abundance and fertility.
In conjunction with the Fowler exhibition, “Mami Wata: Arts for Water Spirits in Africa and its Diasporas,” the festival hopes to provoke students and community members to get in touch with their artistic and spiritual identities and arrive in oceanic costumes.
Beginning with a procession on the top of Janss Steps led by Viver Brasil Dance Company, the initial festival march is open to student groups and all costumed audience members. Viver Brasil will sing songs for the Orisas, the gods and goddesses of the Brazilian Candomble tradition.
“We are bringing attention to the fact that water is (a) savory element and part of all of us in terms of our mindfulness to present day environment. … In our sense, we are taking care of water from (a) spiritual context; by us doing this, we are taking care of our environment,” said Linda Yudin, UCLA alum and co-artistic director of Viver Brasil.
Attendees with the most creative attire marching in the procession are eligible for cash prizes. Among the categories for prizes are, “mermaid king” and “queen”, “most reptilian” and “most musical.” Gina Hall, manager of school and family services at the Fowler museum, encourages people to use everyday resources as inspiration for their costumes.
“You can use the plastic bags that you have collected at your house from the grocery store and tie them together and make a tail or a snake.” Hall said.
Other forms of entertainment will be present during the festival. A booth will be dedicated to face painting, while a snake charmer will perform with her ball pythons. Art stations will also be arranged for festivalgoers to create mermaid crowns, paper flowers, rain sticks and ocean drums. Organizers have created a community altar dedicated to Mami Wata through which the audience can present sweet smells or their artistic creations to this spirit.
Along with the spiritual element of the festival, highlighted by the song and dance groups performing, the festival also hopes to engage its audience in environmental awareness. Environmental organizations, including Heal the Bay, will have booths to promote their environmental contributions.
“We need to think about how our actions affect the oceans and the seas. We need to protect the waters by keeping them clean and not polluting, and be thinking about the fact that we are all connected to the ocean through the drain system, so everything we do, even in a landlocked city, affects the health of the waters as well,” Hall said.
At its booth, Heal the Bay will present touch tanks of starfish and sea creatures while simulating a kelp forest that viewers can walk through and assist people in making prints of kelp.
To implement theories of environmental conservation, the festival will not be serving bottled water to event goers. Instead, a company called Pure Water Science is providing clean water through a water filtration system. Since California is currently in a state of drought, the issue is localized to cater to the Los Angeles community.
“There will be a water station for people to hydrate themselves throughout the day, but not in a way that’s going to depend on bottled water because bottled water is a tremendous strain on the environment. Plastic bottles … are pollutants, and you have these water companies that are importing water from very far away,” Hall said.
Adjacent to the water booth will be booths with Haitian cuisine and a macrobiotic truck providing organic vegetarian food.
The festival serves to juxtapose the message of environmental health with a spiritual connection with water.
“Mami Wata dwells in the waters and the rivers and oceans, and she wants her waters to be clean, and I think that a huge component for us in our educational mission is getting people to understand their relationship to the water and understand that, in the diversity of communities,” Hall said.
The Fowler Museum at UCLA, with the help of Community Arts and Resources (CARS), is holding “Splash! A Celebration of Mermaids and the Sea.” The festival will be held on Saturday, April 19 and will promote healthy environmental practices, celebrate the cultures of Congolese and Afro-Brazilian dance and music troupes, and delve into the history of Mami Wata, a water spirit symbolizing abundance and fertility.
In conjunction with the Fowler exhibition, “Mami Wata: Arts for Water Spirits in Africa and its Diasporas,” the festival hopes to provoke students and community members to get in touch with their artistic and spiritual identities and arrive in oceanic costumes.
Beginning with a procession on the top of Janss Steps led by Viver Brasil Dance Company, the initial festival march is open to student groups and all costumed audience members. Viver Brasil will sing songs for the Orisas, the gods and goddesses of the Brazilian Candomble tradition.
“We are bringing attention to the fact that water is (a) savory element and part of all of us in terms of our mindfulness to present day environment. … In our sense, we are taking care of water from (a) spiritual context; by us doing this, we are taking care of our environment,” said Linda Yudin, UCLA alum and co-artistic director of Viver Brasil.
Attendees with the most creative attire marching in the procession are eligible for cash prizes. Among the categories for prizes are, “mermaid king” and “queen”, “most reptilian” and “most musical.” Gina Hall, manager of school and family services at the Fowler museum, encourages people to use everyday resources as inspiration for their costumes.
“You can use the plastic bags that you have collected at your house from the grocery store and tie them together and make a tail or a snake.” Hall said.
Other forms of entertainment will be present during the festival. A booth will be dedicated to face painting, while a snake charmer will perform with her ball pythons. Art stations will also be arranged for festivalgoers to create mermaid crowns, paper flowers, rain sticks and ocean drums. Organizers have created a community altar dedicated to Mami Wata through which the audience can present sweet smells or their artistic creations to this spirit.
Along with the spiritual element of the festival, highlighted by the song and dance groups performing, the festival also hopes to engage its audience in environmental awareness. Environmental organizations, including Heal the Bay, will have booths to promote their environmental contributions.
“We need to think about how our actions affect the oceans and the seas. We need to protect the waters by keeping them clean and not polluting, and be thinking about the fact that we are all connected to the ocean through the drain system, so everything we do, even in a landlocked city, affects the health of the waters as well,” Hall said.
At its booth, Heal the Bay will present touch tanks of starfish and sea creatures while simulating a kelp forest that viewers can walk through and assist people in making prints of kelp.
To implement theories of environmental conservation, the festival will not be serving bottled water to event goers. Instead, a company called Pure Water Science is providing clean water through a water filtration system. Since California is currently in a state of drought, the issue is localized to cater to the Los Angeles community.
“There will be a water station for people to hydrate themselves throughout the day, but not in a way that’s going to depend on bottled water because bottled water is a tremendous strain on the environment. Plastic bottles … are pollutants, and you have these water companies that are importing water from very far away,” Hall said.
Adjacent to the water booth will be booths with Haitian cuisine and a macrobiotic truck providing organic vegetarian food.
The festival serves to juxtapose the message of environmental health with a spiritual connection with water.
“Mami Wata dwells in the waters and the rivers and oceans, and she wants her waters to be clean, and I think that a huge component for us in our educational mission is getting people to understand their relationship to the water and understand that, in the diversity of communities,” Hall said.