Second Annual Family Fun Fair
 
What:   Trinity College hosts the Second Annual Samba Festival featuring entertainment fit for the whole family.  The event will include the Hartford Steel Symphony (Caribbean Steel Band), JuggleJoy (Juggling/Circus Duo), Efraim Silva and Ginga Brasileira (Afro-Brazilian Martial Art/Dance Demonstration and Workshop) and the Trinity College Samba Ensemble directed by Eric Galm.  There will be crafts, face painting and games for children provided by the Trinity Fun Fair throughout the event.  Co-chaired by Andrea Chivakos (‘08) and Danielle Grossman (‘08).  This event has been funded in part from a Greater Hartford Arts Council Community Events Grant, and the Mellon Foundation Urban/Global Initiative at Trinity College.  This event is free and open to the public.

When: Saturday, May 3 ~ 12:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.

Where:  Outdoors on the Mather Quad (In front of Austin Arts Center)
Trinity College, 300 Summit Street, Hartford, CT 06106. 
Rain location:  Vernon Street Social Center, 114 Vernon St., Hartford.

Background:

The Hartford Steel Symphony was established in 1989, and is directed by Kelvin Griffith.  This group performs a broad variety of musical genres, including Soca, Calypso, Reggae, Pop, Classical, Gospel and Jazz -- all with an island flavor.  The band’s performers have all competed at a high level in several steel band competitions and musical extravaganzas.  The band has also been a featured performer with The Hartford Symphony Orchestra, at Hartford’s First Night celebration, and in several parades including the annual West Indian Celebrations, a UCONN championship recognition parade and various Firemen Appreciation parades throughout the city.

JuggleJoy is a two-person, circus-style comedy team.  Laughter is the theme of the day!  This fun-filled variety show features juggling, unicycling, magic, and plenty of silly surprises.  Comic characters Felicity Fussenbother and Tobasco Peppar will delight children of all ages – from three to 93 – with circus stunts, wacky antics, and good humor.  JuggleJoy is the husband-wife team of Keith Hughes and Mary Joy Moriarty.  They have performed from Maine to Virginia at festivals, theaters, museums, schools and libraries.  They are the opening act for the Bushnell Children’s Theare and teaching artists for the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts’ educational programs, the Connecticut Storytelling Center, and University of Hartford’s Summer Place.

Ginga Brasileira is directed by Efraim Silva from Guarujá, São Paulo, Brazil.  They will present a dance demonstration of capoeira, an energetic musical Afro-Brazilian martial art-dance-game that features fast-paced spins, kicks, and precise timing.  This group will also conduct an interactive workshop of maculelê, a stick dance developed by enslaved Africans on Brazil’s northeastern sugar cane plantations in the 17th century.  Ginga Brasileira performs in schools, universities and festivals all over the United States, Canada and Brazil.

The Trinity Samba Ensemble, directed by professor Eric Galm, is a drumming and singing ensemble that performs several genres of Afro-Brazilian music.  Trinity Samba’s music is derived from the batucada, a drumming group that plays samba music during the annual pre-Lenten carnaval celebrations.  The batucada is the heart and soul of the Rio de Janeiro carnaval parading associations known as escolas de samba (samba schools), and can number up to 500 musicians, keeping a steady beat for some 3,000 to 5,000 participants.  Trinity Samba’s performances feature music sung in Portuguese, as well as call-and-response songs that facilitate participation for non-Portuguese speaking audiences.  The musical instrumentation includes a variety of percussion instruments such as the surdo (similar to a bass drum); tamborim (small frame drum); agogô (double-bell); ganzá (shaker), and the entire ensemble is directed by musical cues from the repinique, the “master drum” of the ensemble.  Trinity Samba’s instrumentation also features electric guitar, bass and keyboards, which add harmonic layers to the multi-voiced singing and drumming sound.