Festival a 'Celebration of Cultures'

By Shawna S. Kelsch
Diversity Institute Fellow

07.30.02

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Revelers celebrate at Celebration of Cultures festival. Photo by Shiloh Crawford III

Scattered downpours and gray skies on Friday and Saturday did little to deter the almost 3,000 people attending the weekend Celebration of Cultures at Vanderbilt’s Scarritt Bennett Center.

And, although attendance was far below last year’s estimated 6,500 festival-goers, the spirit of the event was realized in the diversity of events offered and the people who attended them, said Celebration Coordinator Dennis Freeman.

“This is a word-of-mouth event,” he said. “There’s just no way to accurately explain this through advertising.”

It seems word about the event got around.

The seventh annual celebration highlights the cultural diversity of middle Tennessee and sprung from the mission of Scarritt-Bennett Center to foster cultural understanding and the creation of an inclusive community, said Carolyn Henninger Oehler, executive director of the center.

On Saturday, surrounded by in-bloom magnolia trees, an organic garden and emerald green lawns, worlds cheerfully collided in 45 tents offering everything from cultural information and interfaith activities to exotic foods and volunteer sign-up sheets. Retailers from around the world – Sudanese, Ecuadorian, Indian and Mexican among them – sold everything from hand-stitched Memory Cloths to tribal clothing to paintings and music.

Scattered further around the grounds, noises from music, dance and storytelling from about 25 world cultures on six stages rose into the Saturday afternoon air, thick with the smell of wet grass.

Near the Family Stage, a blond-haired, blue-eyed little boy shuffled happily to the beat of the Batimbo Dancers, a Nashville intervention program designed to keep teens off the streets with African dance and drumming rituals.

Just across the lawn on a stage sponsored by The City Paper, the nine-member samba band Som Braisileiro was playing folk songs with staccato bongo beats and rain-stick echoes peppering upbeat music.

Sixteen-year-old Hidayah Rose gave thanks for the cultural event, as she navigated through the crowd in red, white and blue Nike Air Max sneakers, a red and gold Lapa (the traditional African skirt tied at the back of the waist), a white cotton head wrap and a purple cell phone clipped to her hip.

“Especially after 9-11, people are afraid of cultural differences,” she said. “This helps bring together different cultures to show people things outside their norm.”

Bridgestone/Firestone Trust, Channel 4, Am South Bank and The City Paper helped the center sponsor the celebration. Additional funding was provided by Metro-Nashville Arts Commission, Tennessee Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts. The festival’s Honorary Chairperson was Darryl Tufuku of the Nashville Urban League.

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