This week, FESTIBA 2020, following its theme of building a better world, will bring concerts, art exhibits, literary readings and panel discussions involving research and important sustainability issues.
“The goal of FESTIBA is to promote literacy, to celebrate the cultural arts,” said Dahlia Guerra, UTRGV assistant vice president for Public Art. “It’s about representing our culture, our region and our student body.”
Last Saturday, the Festival of International Books and Arts (FESTIBA) kicked off with the South Texas Literacy Symposium in the Ballroom of the Edinburg campus.
The panel discussed this year’s topic, which is sustainability and environmental awareness, and what the public can do to reverse ecological damage.
“Every year, we choose a topic to research and to discuss that has a significant impact,” Guerra said.
Today’s schedule of activities center on Sustainable Food Day. The Environmental Awareness Club will promote healthy habits to the community with the sale of organic vegetables harvested by farmers and other utility products in their Farmer’s Market, scheduled from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on the East lawn of the Student Union on the Edinburg campus.
After the Farmer’s Market, the university will host three guest speakers in the PlainsCapital Bank Student Union Theater: Angelita Garcia, owner of Angie’s Apothecary, will present “The Case for a Plant-Based Diet” from 3 to 3:50 p.m.; Thomas Padilla, owner of the Hour Farm, “Sustainable Farm Technology-Past, Present, Future,” 4 to 4:50 p.m.; and Alexis Racelis, director of UTRGV’s Agroecology Program, “The Truth About the Conventional Food System,” 5 p.m.
Guerra said the festival is “a way of uniting our campus and our community in a common focus, a common research.”
Tuesday is Words + Pictures Group Comics Day, in which four academic panels and information sessions on comics will be featured.
In the first panel, art Lecturer Brian Dick and art Associate Professor Donald Jerry Lyles will present “Jack Kirby: Creator of Better Worlds” at 11 a.m. in Visual Arts Building 1.227.
The other three panel discussions will take place in University Library Room 3.117: creative writing Associate Professor Jean Braithwaite, art Assistant Professors Paul Valadez and Jing Zhang and student Sabrina De La Rosa will present “The Future of Comic Studies in the RGV” from 9:30 to 10:45 a.m.; theatre Professor David Carren, “A Comic in the Twilight Zone,” 2 p.m.; research and instruction Librarian Carlton Nelson and master’s of fine arts graduate students, “Utopia/Dystopia: The Confusing Development of Community in ‘Ghost in the Shell,’” 3:30 p.m.
The Community Historical Archaeology Project with Schools (CHAPS) will present a sneak preview of its ongoing research over ancient landscapes of the Rio Grande Valley from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. in Science building 2.507.
Denice Frohman, a New York City poet, performer and educator and a former Women of the World Poetry Slam Champion, will speak at 6 p.m. Wednesday and 11 a.m. Thursday in the Education Complex’s Borderlands Room.
UTRGV Mariachi Aztlán will perform in the Texas Southmost College Performing Arts Center in Brownsville at 7 p.m. Wednesday. Afterward, the film “Una Última y Nos Vamos,” by Mexican director Noe Santillan-Lopez, will be screened at 7:30 p.m.
The movie is about a Mariachi group that leaves its hometown to perform at a national competition in Mexico City. As a group of seven, they need another member to compete and they recruit a rock musician.
During the 10th annual International Book Discussion, students from the Oxford School of Reynosa, Tamaulipas, Mexico, and St. Matthew’s Episcopal School of Edinburg will discuss “The First Rule of Punk” and interview via Skype its author, Celia C. Perez at 10:30 a.m. Thursday in the City of Edinburg’s Dustin M. Sekula Memorial Library.
Vietnam veterans Beto Conde and Alejo Garcia will read selections from their books and discuss their time during and after the war from 12:30 to 1:45 p.m. Thursday in the Education Complex’s Borderlands Room. Conde is the author of “We Were Raza” (2017) and “Memories in Green: A Mind’s Fifty Year Journey from Drafted to PTSD” (2019). Garcia is the author of “Where the Mesquite Tree Grows” (2018).
On the Brownsville campus, undergraduate students in the Rhetoric and Composition I class will present their experiences about learning Spanish on the South Texas border. Monica Reyes, a Writing and Language Studies lecturer, will host this event from 12:30 to 1:15 p.m. in Music, Science & Learning Center 1.112.
The first Friday event will be the presentation,“The Impact of Science Fiction in Novels and Films to Science Fact.” John Ferris, research and instruction librarian, will present the discussion about the influence of science fiction in books, films and real-life science developments from 2 to 3:30 p.m. in Brownsville Library 1.118.
UTRGV Productions will present the musical, “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas,” at 7:30 p.m. Friday in the Albert L. Jeffers Theatre, located in Liberal Arts Building South on the Edinburg campus.
As part of the FESTIBA 2020 Mariachi Festival, UTRGV Mariachi Aztlán and Mariachi Juvenil Aztlán will share the stage with Grammy-award winner Aida Cuevas at 7:30 p.m. Friday in the Performing Arts Complex on the Edinburg campus.
The performance is part of the daylong Mariachi Festival Workshop, Competition and Concerts. Hundreds of students from across the nation will attend workshops on mariachi repertoire, performance practices and mariachi style with renowned mariachi educators, according to the FESTIBA program.
“The fact that all kids have a chance to meet all these mariachi professionals, you cannot find better mariachis at this level,” said Francisco Loera, a Music Department senior lecturer and co-director of UTRGV Mariachi. “They get to meet them, they get to ask them questions … they get to learn from them.”
At 7:30 p.m. Saturday, the UTRGV Mariachi Aztlán will perform with guest artists Mariachi Sol de Mexico de José Hernandez in the Performing Arts Complex on the Edinburg campus.
Bilingual education senior Giselle Sanchez is a member of Mariachi Aztlán.
“I think it’s amazing. … We don’t get these types of opportunities often,” Sanchez said about performing with guest artists. “It’s awesome to know that our university is able to provide … concerts like these.”
The UTRGV Dance program will host a Dance Adjudication Festival from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday in Health and Physical Education Building II with a panel composed of renowned choreographers, dancers, scholars and/or artists from the U.S. and Mexico, according to the FESTIBA program.
For more information visit, utrgv.edu/festiba.
“It is a weeklong event,” Dahlia Guerra said. “I hope that there’s something for everyone and that you can find something interesting that will appeal to you as a reader or as someone who is interested in FESTIBA.
