Kwanzaa Comes Early to CSI
Musical extravaganza keyed to youth gets everyone up and dancing
Staten Island Advance - Saturday, December 08,
2007
 One word sums up the 31st annual Kwanzaa event at the College of
Staten Island (CSI) last night: Infectious.
So riveting were all the African and African-American songs, dance,
poetry, music and drumbeats that all that magic simply flowed off
the stage and straight into the crowd, where audience members could
be seen shaking, moving, clapping and dancing in their seats.
Program director and coordinator CSI Professor Charles Thomas served
the evening up to the community as he always does -- with
enthusiasm, grace, inspiration and the fierce determination to make
sure everyone has a good time.
And the crowd was certainly ready to party.
With the evening's theme of "Passing the Torch to Our Youth," more
than 220 people -- most of them young -- showed up, and CSI did not
disappoint.
"Kwanzaa is about celebration," Staten Island's own Kwanzaa Lady,
Janet Robinson, told the eager crowd.
"Our accent [is] on the youth," noted Prof. Thomas. "And our place
is filled with youth tonight and they are going to perform and show
you what they can do, and they are going to see the adults and
people who are role models."
The show kicked off on a high note as Harold Williams and his PS 14
Children of the Village performance group took to the stage with
drummers garnering howls and applause from the audience before they
even played a single note. Then the young female dancers dressed in
colorful skirts of blue, orange, red and yellow offered the Funga, a
traditional welcoming African folk dance. And the girls sang out
[to] the audience who sang right back at them and who then applauded
wildly when the dancers did their moves in double and triple time.
"PS 14 is [in] the house!" said new CSI President Tomas Morales, who
put an emphasis on education for the young guests. "This college is
your college ... and if you work hard, you have a seat here,
especially because in today's world a college education is
absolutely necessary to move forward."
Then the party continued with a performance by the Nubian Starlets.
Legendary jazz flautist Bobbi Humphrey, dressed in a slinky black
dress and tan shawl, wowed the crowd with a jazz-styled version of
Lionel Richie's "Hello".
One of the evening's highlights was actor Lou Myers. Myers, 62, a
critically acclaimed actor best known as Vernon Gaines in the sitcom
"A Different World," kicked off his performance playing a jazzy
piano and signing "It's Time to Rain Down Love."
Then he offered up an old African song and asked the young people in
the audience if they remembered it. Whether they did or not was
irrelevant, once the African drums kicked in and Myers started
singing, dancing, strutting, twirling and shuffling across the stage
-- he had everyone eating out of the palm of his hand.
The evening included plenty more appearances, including Terry Rowden,
rapper Philos, Frank Lucas Jr. and The Lady Panthers.
The event was sponsored by [The] City University of New York Black
Male Initiative Program, in conjunction with the CSI program in
African American Studies and the Department of Performing and
Creative Arts.
Kwanzaa, which runs from Dec. 26 through Jan. 1, was created to
honor and celebrate the contributions and heritage of African and
African-American peoples, as well as recognize the ancestors whose
work made their advancement possible.
By Kiawana Rich
Reprinted here with permission
from the
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