FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Dann Hayes, Director of Media Relations 641-269-4834.

May 1, 2002

Conference to study the music and culture of the Afro-Latino Diaspora

GRINNELL, Iowa -Music and Culture of the Afro-Latino Diaspora is the theme of the First Annual Conference on Music and Culture at Grinnell College. The conference is 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., Saturday, May 4, Forum South Lounge.

The conference will feature papers that cover music and culture of the Afro-Latino Diaspora. Students will present papers on a variety of topics, including "Ma Rainey," jazz and technology, women and salsa, Guatemalan marimba and read poems.

The conference will conclude with a night of cha, cha, cha, merengue, and salsa in the Harris Center from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m, Saturday evening. A presentation by the husband and wife team of Lisa Laboriqua and Andres Meneses, founders and instructors of the Latin Street Dancing School, Chicago, will start be from 9 p.m. to 10:30 p.m., as they perform and give group instructions in salsa, merengue, and cha, cha, cha.

Coordinators for the conference are Ralph Russell, lecturer, and Jorge Torres, assistant professor of music, and Grinnell College students Giovanni Cortez and Nazli Eginlioglu. The event is supported by the Department of Music, the Africana Studies, Latin American Studies, Baile, ACE, SGA, and SOL.