A Preview of This Weekend's Festival Betances 2011

Festival Betances 2011 marches loudly and proudly into the South End with a parade at 6:00 this evening, launching a weekend celebration of Puerto Rican and Latin American arts, food and cultural activities. 

The festival, named for 19^th century Puerto Rican humanitarian and nationalist leader Dr. Ramón Emeterio Betances, celebrates the Villa Victoria community and its rich heritage rooted in Puerto Rico, but also encompassing other Latin American cultures. 

Festival Betances will take place in Plaza Betances at 82 West Dedham Street, and will run from 6:00 PM until 9:00 PM on Friday, July 15; 2:30-10:00 PM on Saturday, July 16; and Sunday, July 17 from 1:00-9:00 PM.  Ending times are approximate.  Art and craft and food vendors will round out the cultural experience at Festival Betances each day.  Admission to all festival events is free.  Festival Betances is sponsored by IBA (Inquilinos Boricuas en Acción), a non-profit arts, education, and community-building organization located in Villa Victoria. 

Festival Betances showcases Puerto Rican performing arts and traditions, but also includes acts that reflect the diversity of Villa Victoria and the South End. 

While the weekend boasts high-profile headliners such as New York-based salsa and Latin Jazz innovator Larry Harlow and the Spanish Harlem Orchestra, the festival's schedule embodies this year’s theme, Yo Soy Villa Victoria (I Am Villa Victoria) by presenting a wealth and variety of South End talent, including female acts from youth to seniors.  All-girl teen dance troupe, the South End Showstopperz; take the stage on Saturday at 7:15 PM, immediately preceding the evening’s headliner, Larry Harlow, and the young ladies of South End Dynamite will dance and twirl batons to a variety of Afro-Latin American musical styles on Sunday evening at 6:15. 

Las Pleneras de la Villa, a group of senior women singers and dancers, will bring Puerto Rico’s lively, melodic folk songs and dances to the stage at 4:30 PM on Sunday. Although the focus of Festival Betances is the Villa Victoria community, the entertainment roster includes acts from around the city including Dorchester’s Seekers of Knowledge, a dance group of girls ages 6-18; and performers from East Boston’s Zumix multi-cultural youth arts program.   

Sunday’s festivities begin with the climbing of the Grease Pole contest, in which teams of five or six men and women standing on each others’ shoulders compete to reach the Puerto Rican flag at the top of a grease-covered pole. The first team that grabs the flag wins a $500 prize. 

“It’s fun to watch and scary at the same time,” explains Elizabeth Pabón, Program Manager of IBA’s Pathway Technology Campus, a partnership with Bunker Hill Community College. The Grease Pole competition will take place in , next to the Villa Victoria Center for the Arts (85 W. Newton St.) at 1:00, and teams should arrive at the park at 12:30 PM to register for the event. 

For directions, a complete schedule and other information about Festival Betances, please call (617)927-1707 or visit http://www.iba-etc.org/events/2011/festivalbetances.html.