BLENDING CULTURES
Three major festivals will help Hamilton and its guests celebrate the 2015 Pan Am Games
The Pan Am Games are about more than just winners and losers, gold, silver and bronze. It’s also about merging cultures, with the host city become the meeting place for people from across North and South America.
Music, like sport, has the ability to rise above cultural differences. So the Games are also celebrating salsa, samba, calypso, reggae, tango, hip hop, pow wow beats, country, jazz, blues, funk and folk. Even, good old rock ’n’ roll.
In Hamilton, three major festivals will celebrate the Games cultural diversity through music — It’s Your Festival ( July 9 to 12 at Gage Park), the Hamilton World Music Festival ( July 17 to 19, Gage Park) and the Waterfront Pan Am Cultural Showcase ( July 25 and 26 at Pier 4 Park near the foot of Bay Street).
There are also numerous other cultural events happening throughout the Games period, like the Because Beer festival ( July 10 and 11 at Pier 4 Park), the 12th annual Hamilton Fringe Festival ( July 16 to 26 at various downtown venues), and the Pan Am Promenade beer garden, musical entertainment and games viewing screen at Gore Park, open daily.
Here’s a brief synopsis on what you can expect at each of these events:
It’s Your Festival
OK, there’s little new about his four-day cultural festival that has been running every summer for 45 years, celebrating the city’s cultural diversity. It’s usually held around the Canada Day weekend, but this it year moved to July 9 to 12 to take advantage of the Pan Am Games.
A large screen at the park will feature live broadcasts of the soccer games being played at the nearby CIBC Pan Am Soccer Stadium (Tim Hortons Field), starting July 12. As well, a junior street soccer tournament will be held on all four days of the festival.
Still the big draw at the festival is the night music on the main stage.
The Trews will perform on Thursday, July 9, at 8 p.m., following opening ceremonies and a “parade of cultures.” I Mother Earth will perform Friday, July 10, following a performance by Hamilton protopunk band Simply Saucer. Canadian Music Hall of Famers April Wine will take the stage Sunday, July 12 at 8 p.m.
The festival also includes a spelling bee, baby contest, puppet show, midway rides, children’s stage, a beer garden, food fair, artisans and vendors.
Hamilton World Music Festival
Top-notch entertainers representing India, Jamaica, South Africa, Cuba and Chile will be among the headliners performing at the second annual Hamilton World Music Festival, July 17 to 19 in Gage Park. The free festival features more than 25 international acts on its main stage.
On the Friday-night bill is the traditional Latin American group Inti-Illimani, a cultural icon in its native country, Chile. Saturday night, the main act will be singer-songwriter Pupy y los que Son Son, a major part of the post-Buena Vista Social Club music scene in Cuba. Pupy is renowned for bringing a dance/party vibe to his band’s venues.
Sunday night will feature South Africa’s Lorraine Klaasen and Indo-Canadian fusion performer Kiran Ahluwalia. Klaasen is the daughter of legendary jazz singer Thandie Klaasen, and works in traditional South African “Township Music.”
Ahluwalia, born in India and raised in Toronto, is classically-trained musician and a two-time Juno winner known for fusing tra- ditional eastern and African music with contemporary western sounds.
Hamilton Waterfront Pan Am Cultural Showcase
This two-day festival (Saturday, July 26, and Sunday, July 27) at Pier 4 Park is being brought to you by Supercrawl Productions, the same people who stage Because Beer and the three-day Supercrawl extravaganza that takes over James St. North in September.
They’ll be broadcasting the medal games at the waterfront park which also has a beer garden . Children, meanwhile, can play in the Pier 4 splash pad and tug boat.
The Saturday night musical highlight will be A Tribe Called Red, an Ottawa-based electronic hip hop trio who combine contemporary urban beats with traditional First Nations’ music.
On Sunday night, there will be a special performance by Hamilton singer-songwrit-
er Terra Lightfoot with Boris Brott and the National Academy Orchestra. That will be followed by a fireworks display by local pyrotechnics wizards Circus Orange to music by the National Academy Orchestra.