Diversity office to celebrate opening with multicultural extravaganza

Latin music and spoken-word poetry champions will raise the rafters at the Majestic Theater, 115 King St., at 7 p.m. on Friday, July 28. On hand will be two renowned singer-songwriters, Guillermo Anderson of Honduras and Romulo Castro of Panama, as well as poets from the Madison Slam Team that are headed to the National Slam Championships next month.

The all-ages evening is a multicultural arts event organized in conjunction with Fiesta Hispana 2006 to celebrate the creation of a new diversity office at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, the Office of Multicultural Arts Initiatives (OMAI). OMAI and WORT-FM are producing this year’s entertainment for Fiesta Hispana. Also, the MAGNET program, an organization serving area professionals, is initiating its partnership with OMAI through this event.

The event, “Rhythm and Poetry Sin Fronteras,” will also feature Greg Landau, former lead guitarist for Nicaragua’s distinguished ensemble Moncotal, and spoken-word performances by teens from OMAI’s Youth Speaks Wisconsin division.

OMAI is a new diversity office at UW–Madison that is housed in the School of Education. Its primary goal is to help recruit students of color to the UW–Madison campus by serving as a clearinghouse for multicultural arts programming.

“Through community partnerships, OMAI will foster a deeper and broader understanding of diverse art forms. Workshops and performances ranging from spoken word and hip hop to Latin jazz and world music will also create a more welcoming climate at UW–Madison for students of color and others through artistic activities,” says Willie Ney, director of the office and former assistant director of UW–Madison’s Latin American, Caribbean and Iberian Studies Program.

In addition to Youth Speaks Wisconsin, which is part of a national youth poetry, spoken word and creative writing program, OMAI also administers Latino Arts, a partner of Milwaukee’s United Community Center’s office of the same name; Cinefest, a Latino film festival highlighting the films, culture and stories of South America and beyond; and Sin Fronteras, a teacher training and multicultural outreach program.

Tickets for “Rhythm and Poetry Sin Fronteras” are $10 and are available at the door the evening of the show. For more information about the event or OMAI, contact Ney at (608) 890-1006 or wney@wisc.edu.