REVIEW: Houston International Festival brings focus to the Caribbean

Brian Bohannon

The Signal Staff

The Houston International Festival hit Houston the third and fourth weekends of April, with this year’s focus again being on the Caribbean. Jamaica was honored in 2006; Caribbean countries were also honored during the 2008 festival “Out of Africa: The Three Journeys.”

The idea behind the annual street festival is to educate citizens with examples of the high art and music of foreign cultures, and to help build good trade relations here in Houston, home to the world famous Port of Houston.

The event is organized by The Houston Festival Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization that has been around since 1971.

Excited concert-goers pack together in anticipation of Parliament/Funkadelic’s entrance at the Houston International Festival World Stage.

The festival has grown exponentially of late, now touting massive headliners. This year includes George Clinton and Parliament/Funkadelic as well as reggae legend Steel Pulse.  The festival now also includes a world stage, dedicated not only to music, but other cultural demonstrations such as cooking classes.

The festival was held downtown between City Hall, Tranquility Park and Sam Houston Park.  The area is encircled by vendors tents, holding various types of artwork, Caribbean jewelry and tables covered with tons of reggae albums.  The smell of jerk chicken along with the distant blending of different music filled the air.  At the House of Blues tent the crowd was treated to a performance by the Blues Brothers singing favorites from the hit movie.  Several DJ’s were positioned along the walk, and one could see belly dancers demonstrating alongside other performers.

The heart of the festival is the call to educate. When asked what the most successful of the education programs was this year, Wendy Slaton, publicist for the Houston International Festival, immediately centered on the new Teacher’s Curriculum Guide.

“The Teacher’s Curriculum Guide [is] a 200 page guide produced free of charge by the festival and distributed to 1,471 schools in 54 school districts,” Slaton said. ”Each year the guide is based on the country or region/theme of the festival so a potential 900,000 students spend the semester learning about the country of honor and then visit the festival to see the guide come to life in the exhibits in the Chevron Living Museum.”

We heard everything from traditional African drums to Zydeco and classic rock before finding our way to the stage nestled in the back where George Clinton was to perform.  The show was supposed to begin at 8 p.m.; the area was packed at 7p.m.

On the way we made a stop at the Chevron Living Museum, which chronicles the history of the Caribbean.  Included is a large mock pirate ship, crewed by costumed volunteers, as well as a reproduction of the Fort of Castillo de San Felipe del Morro, a famous fort guarding the entrance to San Juan harbor in Puerto Rico.  The exhibit also included a version of the Alto Vista Chapel, which was the first missionary church built in Aruba circa 1750.

At 8 p.m. Parliament took the stage and proceeded to take the crowd on a trip back to the 70’s.  It seemed everyone in the very diverse crowd could relate; everyone was dancing and a great time was had by all.

To be honest, the event was pretty pricey.  $18 to get in on top of $8 parking, without taking into account food and drinks, all of which had to be purchased using coupons which you could buy at an exchange rate of 9 to every $10 dollars.  Though I suppose these measures help to afford the bigger headliners, it was definitely pretty high for a student budget.  In spite of this, the festival proved to be a very fun time overall, and would be an entertaining and educational weekend for families as well as college students.

What is in store for next year?

“The theme for next year is the Journey of the Silk Road,” Slaton said.  ”The Silk Road is an extensive interconnected network of trade routes across the Chinese continent connecting East, South, and Western Asia with the Mediterranean world, as well as North and Northeast Africa and Europe.  This theme will allow us to recreate one of the trade routes and spotlight the culture of China, India, Greece and others.”

For more information about this year’s festival and the plans for next year, visit www.ifest.org.

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