Presented by The Harlem School of the Arts and JPMorgan Chase.

Next Event: Descubre Latin America
Just around the corner, Friday, May 9th*!

Descubre Latin America (Discover Latin America), will be an evening of children's workshops, music performances, film screenings, and exhibits on Latin American art and culture. This event celebrates the region's centuries-old traditions, history, cuisine, and fusion of African, Native American, and European ancestry.

*Please note that May's First Fridays event will be held on the 9th instead of the 2nd so that HSA can celebrate its annual spring dance recital.

Programs Include:

• Artist-in-Residence Benjamin Omar Rojas
• Aurora Flores Y Zon del Barrio
• Arturo O'Farrill Trio
• Photography Studio with Mary Giancoli
• Dia de los Muertos Mask-Making with Robin Vaughn
• Dance & Drum workshop with Jose Ortiz and BombaYO
• Animated Children’s Shorts by Juan Pablo Zaramella

Artist-in-Residence: Benjamin Omar Rojas
Borish Gallery

6:00pm – 10:00pm in the G-Space

In 2003 Benjamin helped form an artists' collective with two other friends called Trust Your Struggle. After moving to Brooklyn, New York, Benjamin co-founded the Trust Your Hustle mural tour, which traveled through Mexico and Central America creating murals in the summer of 2006. Benjamin has exhibited art and painted murals in such places as San Francisco, New York City, Virginia Tech University, Trinity College in Connecticut, Puerto Rico, The Netherlands, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. Benjamin has also participated on speaking panels at Trinity College, Virginia Tech University, University of the Arts in Boston, and the Casa de Artesana Women’s Center in Guatemala City.

See more of Benjamin's work online: www.trustyourstruggle.com

Music Performace: Sofia Tosello

6:00pm – 7:00pm in the G-Space

Sofia Tosello, a remarkable young singer hailing from Cordoba, Argentina, belongs to an exciting new group of South American artists blending the traditional rhythms of their respective countries with a funky and sophisticated New York sensibility. In Sofia, one hears the unmistakable imprint of the tango, the chacarera and samba. Also resonating in her voice is an impressive range of sounds, such as jazz, bossa nova, Nueva Trova, son and the lesser known filin (an influential variation of the Cuban bolero made popular by Omara Portuondo and Elena Burke).

Sofia Tosello has performed and recorded with the Pedro Giraudo Jazz Orchestra, Jose Conde y La Ola Fresca, Alex Cuba,Thalia, The Christos Rafalides Latin Quintet and Cocomama. She has performed at the Jazz Gallery, Jazz Standard, Joe’s Pub, Central Park, Madison Square Garden, and the Zinc Bar.

For more information on Sofia, visit http://myspace.com/sofiatosello

Art Studio: Robin Vaughn & Dia de los Muertos
Mask-Making

Session One 6:15pm – 7:00pm
Session Two 7:15pm – 8:00pm
in Studio 111

El Dia de los Muertos (the Day of the Dead), is a Mexican celebration in which those who have departed are celebrated; families remember and prepare special foods in honor of deceased loved ones. On this day, the streets and cemeteries are filled with decorations of papel picado (punched paper), flowers, candy calaveras (skeletons and skulls), and parades. Join Robin in making these wonderfully expressive masks.

Film Screenings: Short Animated Films
by Juan Pablo Zaramella

6:15pm – 7:30pm in Studio 104

Juan Pablo Zaramella was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1972. He graduated at the Instituto de Arte Cinematografico de Avellaneda as Animation Director and began his career making animations for advertisement. In 1998, he started to work as an illustrator and graphist for Clarín newspaper. Some of his works with Clarín have won several international awards from SND (Society of News Design) and Malofiej (Spain). Since 2000, Juan Pablo has been making independent short films with his wife Silvina Cornillón. His latest independent film, (2007), will screen at Sundance Film Festival 2008.

• Journey to Mars (Viaje a Marte) 2004 | 16 mins.
  The short tells the story of Antonio, a boy from the 60s, who is a great fan of science fiction TV serials and space trips. In view of the child's passion, his grandfather decides to take him to Mars in his tow truck. Instead of using actors, the voices of the characters were performed by ordinary people. Journey to Mars has won 50 awards in different festivals around the world, competing in many cases against real-action productions.
  
• The Challenge to Death (El Desafio a la Muerte)
  2001 | 3 mins. 20 secs.
  For the very first time in front of a camera, Fahaki Ayunanda puts his entire body into a blender and assures that he will remain alive after turning it on.
  
• The Glove (El Guante) 2001 | 10 mins.
  A man is mysteriously chosen to receive a strange box with a glove inside. From that moment on, he becomes a part of a plan that may change his life forever.
  
• Sexteens 2006 | 5 mins.
  Educational short film about HIV and adolescents.

For more information on Juan Pablo Zaramella visit http://www.zaramella.com.ar

Dance Workshop: Jose Ortiz & BombaYO

6:30pm – 7:30pm in Studio 106

As Founder and Director of BombaYo Afro-Puerto Rican Youth Project, Jose Ortiz’s aka Dr. Drum’s focus on community culture awareness has grown throughout NYC schools and neighborhoods. As a performance group BombaYo has played for off Broadway in Pedro Santana for President, Madison Square Garden National Woman’s Heart Day Annual Ceremony, Governor Corzine’s Hispanic Heritage Ceremony, National Puerto Rican Parade, Bronx Borough President, Brooklyn Puerto Rican Parade in Williamsburg, Central Park’s Summer Stage, Puerto Rican Folklore Annual Fiesta and much more.

For more information, please visit http://www.bombayo.org

Art Studio: Benjamin Omar Rojas & The Mural Project

6:30pm – 7:30pm in Studio 111

A mural is a painting on a wall, ceiling, or other large, usually permanent, surface. Prehistoric “murals” have been found in southern France on the Caves of Lascaux and some famous “muralists” include Renaissance artists Leonardo da Vinci, Titian, and Michelangelo. In contemporary society, the term received its artistic, cultural, and political prominence due to the work of the Mexican “muralista” art movement, spearheaded by Diego Rivera, David Siquieros, and José Orozco, to name a few. Join Benjamin and explore the art of mural making.

Music Performance: Zon del Barrio

7:15pm – 8:30pm in the G-Space

Zon del Barrio is an innovative and dynamic New York Latin music band. Incorporating plena, salsa, reggaeton and jazz, Zon del Barrio brings the beat of the streets to the hearts of dancers everywhere. Described in Hispanic Magazine as "an outfit steeped in nostalgia while exploding into the future,” Zon del Barrio brings its foot-stomping Latin dance drive from the streets of Spanish Harlem to global stages. The band’s debut CD, Cortijo's Tribe, featuring Fania all-star and king of the cuatro, Yomo Toro, and Cortijo alum singer-songwriter, Sammy Ayala, has been rated among the top ten of 2007 by Radio France, Venezuela's El Magazine de la Salsa and South Florida's WDNA-FM's Fusion Latina.

Visit the Band Online at http://www.zondelbarrio.com

Music Workshop: ¡Tambora! Drumming

7:30pm – 8:30pm in Studio 106

Jose Ortiz, aka Dr. Drum, a Bronx native, is a self-taught percussionist of Afro-Caribbean rhythms. For the past 9 years, he has been involved with various after-school programs throughout New York City and has developed curricula for teaching percussion to young people. Join in on this exciting choral and drumming workshop!

Photography Studio with Mary Giancoli: Round Trip Migrations from Mexico to New York

6:30pm – 7:45pm in Studio 105

For the past decade, Mary has been documenting Mexican migrants and the recent wave of immigration to New York by looking at work, family, traditional dances, foods and religious rituals carried out in New York and Mexico. Giancoli traveled to Puebla, one of the regions that send people to New York to pursue the American Dream. Giancoli documented the same rituals at their origin, and the lives of families who have remained.

Giancoli will present images from the Virgin of Guadalupe series highlighting processions in New York and the renowned Virgin of Guadalupe pilgrimage from Atlixco, Puebla to Mexico, City. This will be followed by images from Mexican Lives, Mexican Rituals, a black and white series on Mexican dance festivals and holidays such as Day of the Dead. From her Mexican archive, she will include the Atlixcayotl, a dance festival that showcases pre-hispanic and traditional dances; and the Feria de Huipil in Cuetzalan, Puebla, a festival to honor indigenous people who have been displaced from their lands which culminates in the Procession of the Wax. She will culminate with her newest work on migrant farm workers in Long Island, juxtaposed with farm workers in Mexico.

Explore Mary's work at http://www.biddingtons.com/gallery/giancoli

HSA Artist-in-Residence: Artist Talk with Benjamin Omar Rojas

7:45pm – 9:00pm in Studio 104
(PG-13 audiences)

Benjamin will screen the Trust Your Hustle mural tour, a short documentary on his tour through the Americas with two other members of the collective, before discussing his work, some of which he describes as “intense.” He writes, “My body of work speaks [about] several different subjects. From a glance, they may give the viewer the impression that they are simply portraits. But their own stories tell different tales of abuse, manhood, boyhood, gangs, war, self-defense, indigenous self-determination, death, creation, ancestors, and the most important, love. As with all my portrait work, the subjects always possess a heart somewhere on their bodies, a reminder to the viewer and to me that we are all owners of something very sacred. To my people and me our art was never just art. It is our movement, our tools, and our religion. I create in the hope that my work can be used as a tool for discussion, healing, or question.”

Dance Workshop: Conjunto Folklórico Nuevo Milenio

8:00pm – 9:00pm in Studio 105

Conjunto Folklórico Nuevo Milenio (CNM) is a Panamanian folkloric ensemble that performs choreographed versions of the nation’s traditional dances, portraying various aspects of Panamanian life. In sharing Panamanian traditions, CNM strives to open communication pathways, to serve as “conduits for cultural exchange, irrigating the soil of knowledge, to give birth to the tree of understanding.” Participants will experience the splendor of Panamanian history through song and dance.

Check out CNM at http://conjuntonuevomilenio.homestead.com/Index.html

Music Performance: Arturo O'Farrill Trio

8:45pm – 10:15pm in the G-Space

Winner of the Latin Jazz USA Outstanding Achievement Award for 2003, Mr. O'Farrill was born in Mexico and grew up in New York City. In 2002, Mr. O’Farrill and Wynton Marsalis created the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra for Jazz at Lincoln Center due in part to a large and very demanding body of substantial music in the genre of Latin and Afro Cuban Jazz that deserves to be much more widely appreciated and experienced by the general jazz audience. His debut album with the Orchestra “Una Noche Inolvidable” earned a GRAMMY award nomination in 2006.

Educated at the Manhattan School of Music, Brooklyn College Conservatory, and the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College, Mr. O’Farrill played piano with the Carla BleyBig Band from 1979 through 1983. He then went on to develop as a solo performer with a wide spectrum of artists including Dizzy Gillespie, Steve Turre, Freddy Cole, The Fort Apache Band, Lester Bowie, Wynton Marsalis, and Harry Belafonte.

In 1995 Mr. O’Farrill agreed to direct the band that preserved much of his father’s music, Chico O’Farrill’s Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra, which has been in residence at Birdland, as well as performing throughout the world as a solo artist and with his smaller groups. Besides recording five albums as a leader for Milestone Records, 32 Jazz, Zoho and M & I (Bloodlines, A Night in Tunisia, Cumana Bop, Live in Brooklyn and The Jim Seeley/Arturo O’Farrill Quintet), Mr. O’Farrill has appeared on numerous records as a guest artist.

Recently, Mr. O'Farrill was honored when the corner of West End Ave. and 88th Street was named "Arturo O'Farrill Place."

For more on Arturo O'Farrill, visit: www.arturoofarrill.com

Previous First Fridays kicked off April 4th with Celebrating New Orleans.

Over 200 children and adults attended!
The program included:

• Artist-in-Residence Paul DEO
• McCollough Sons of Thunder brass band
• Photography Studio, New Orleans and The Gulf Coast: Two Years After the Storm with John Pinderhughes
• Hands-on Art, New Orleans Masquerade Mask-Making with Sandra Bell
• Dance studio, Jazz Moves, New Orleans Grooves with Robin Vaughn
• HSA Theater Documentary Films, Children of Katrina: Still Weathering the Storm directed by Joseph Van Harken and My Spring Break in New Orleans directed by Evan Allen-Gessesse
• Jambalaya Brass Band

Programs are subject to change without notice. Beginning at 6 p.m., admission to First Fridays is free for children under 12; Adults $8; Seniors & Students with ID $6.

Café and cash bar.

About The Harlem School of the Arts

The Harlem School of the Arts offers multidisciplinary arts education in dance, music, theatre and the visual arts to more than 3,000 students annually. Its mission is to promote and provide exposure to the arts to enrich the lives of children in the Harlem community and beyond. HSA is the only community-based arts institution in the greater New York City area that provides comprehensive programs and services in visual arts, dance, theatre and music tailored to communities of color. HSA is committed to meeting the challenges of the 21st century by expanding its programs to ensure that HSA students have access to new arts education methodologies and cutting edge technology in today's information-driven global society.