Music, Films and More to Highlight
DCC’s Hispanic Heritage Month Celebration
September 14, 2018 – Dutchess Community College will mark Hispanic Heritage Month at its Poughkeepsie campus with 11 events including presentations, films and a unique DJ performance, all scheduled from Sept. 20 – Nov. 1. The theme for the month is “A Glimpse into the Lives of Latina Women.” All events are free and open to the public.
A performance by DJ Perly, DCC alumnae and winner of the 2017 USA DMC Battle, is scheduled for Sept. 20 at 12:30 p.m. in the James and Betty Hall Theatre. She will mix a history of hip hop DJ-ing with her Puerto Rican roots.
On Oct. 4 at 12:30 p.m., the documentary “Some Girls” will be shown in Hudson Hall room 404. The film explores issues of identity within the Latina-American community by focusing on a group of troubled teenage girls in a Bronx-based suicide prevention program who feel rejected by mainstream America.
A Day of the Dead performance by traditional son jarocho musical group Son Pecadores will close the Hispanic Heritage Month festivities on Nov. 1 at 12:30 p.m. in Dutchess Hall room 101.
A full listing of Hispanic Heritage Month events follows. For more information about the Hispanic Heritage Month events, contact Dr. Camille Sola at (845) 431-8369 or camille.sola@sunydutchess.edu.
Abuelas/Grandmothers: Album Familiar
Thursday, September 20, 11 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Hudson Hall, room 226
Cinthya Santos-Briones is a Mexican documentary photographer and photojournalist whose work focuses on the issues of migration, gender and identity. She will discuss how her images explore the relationship between space, memory, time and culture. Her work has been published in The New York Times, Vogue and Buzzfeed among other media outlets.
DJ Perly Presents: She Cuts So Fresh!
Thursday, September 20, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
James and Betty Hall Theatre
DJ Perly, former DCC student and first woman to win the prestigious USA DMC Battle Championship, will mix a history of hip hop DJ-ing with her Puerto Rican roots.
Latina Perspectives in the Hudson Valley
Thursday, September 27, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Dutchess Hall, room 101
Participants will discuss how the work they do intersects with issues of identity. The panel is expected to include Laura Garcia, Racial Justice program manager for YWCA Orange County; Inaudy Esposito, executive director of the Orange County Human Rights Commission; and Mariel Fiori, managing editor, La Voz magazine, Bard College, and co-host and co-producer of La Voz, Radio Kingston.
Performative Art with Polina Porras
Tuesday, October 2, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Dutchess Hall, room 101
Interdisciplinary artist Polina Porras will discuss her artwork, which explores female iconography, rites of passage and cultural syncretism. The workshop will allow audience members to explore their own identities through the practice of performance art. Porras also will integrate her own lived experience of identity formation through her artwork.
Film: “Some Girls”
Thursday, October 4, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Hudson Hall, room 404
“Some Girls” explores issues of identity within the Latina-American community by focusing on a group of troubled teenage girls in a Bronx-based suicide prevention program who feel rejected by mainstream America. The girls are transformed through an exploration of their roots on a journey to the Dominican Republic. By challenging white supremacist narratives about American history, one can examine questions such as, what does it really mean to be American? And, more importantly, what does that look like?
Film: “La Cocina de Las Patronas
Thursday, October 11, 5-7 p.m.
Hudson Hall, room 406
This film tells the story of a group of women in rural Veracruz who more than 20 years ago began cooking and delivering meals for Central American migrants traveling on the top of the freight trains that make up La Bestia. Since then, these women have not only been providing food to migrants in precarious situations, but have transformed their kitchen into a political space. Las Patronas have learned how to talk about Mexico’s problems, poverty in the countryside, human rights, society’s indifference toward migrants and about their own rights as women.
Radical Latina Art: 1960-1985
Tuesday, October 16, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Hudson Hall, room 404
Carmen Hermo, associate curator at the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, will discuss Latina artists from 15 countries who made use of the female body as a form of political and social critique, as well as a medium for artistic expression and feminist activism, often realized under harsh political and social conditions.
Cuerpo con texto: Body Performativity in Art and Everyday Life
Thursday, October 18, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Handel Dining Room
Artist and educator Marielys Burgos Melendez will host a lecture and workshop that explores the body and actions as strategies for self-determination, resilience and decolonization. Performativity serves as a lens to contemplate diverse, complex – and at times conflicted – narratives embedded and portrayed through the body. Participants will explore the works of several Latinx performance artists, as well as be guided into a creative practice of body awareness and bodily history to reflect our uses and displays of our own bodies in relationship to cultural heritage, time and place.
What Does it Mean to be Latinx and American Today? Ancestral DNA Testing and Race in Latinx America
Tuesday, October 23, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Dutchess Hall, room 101
Raquel Cepeda, award-winning journalist, cultural activist, podcaster and documentary filmmaker, will speak about various themes flowing from the journey of discovering one’s roots using ancestral DNA testing and the complexities of negotiating a hyphenated identity as a Latina-American living in America today. Drawing from her latest book, “Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina,” and documentary film work including “Some Girls,” Cepeda will speak about the power of reclaiming one’s roots and the tools used to reconstruct one’s respective identity.
A Glimpse Into DCC’s “In the Heights”
Thursday, October 25, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
James and Betty Hall Theatre
Enjoy a sneak peek at DCC’s presentation of Lin Manuel Miranda’s first Broadway hit, “In the Heights” – a look at the life of various Washington Heights residents living in New York City. Theatre students will perform various song and dance numbers and discuss their experience staging this popular play.
Day of the Dead Son Jarocho Concert
Thursday, November 1, 12:30-1:45 p.m.
Dutchess Hall, room 101
The Hispanic Heritage Month celebration will close with a performance by the traditional son jarocho musical group Son Pecadores.
