Global Fest not just music

The Global Music Fest created a party atmosphere at Creekside Theatre on Saturday night as Latin music, Venezuelan cuisine and global initiatives combined to entertain, educate and inspire.

Cristian De La Luna, originally from Colombia and now residing in Edmonton, had everyone clapping, tapping their toes, swaying in their seats and dancing in front of the stage, thanks to his Latin rhythms.

In the foyer, Matthew Fulford was raising funds to drill a well and construct a boys’ dormitory for a children’s home in northern India as one of the four teams participating in this year’s Global Sustainability Challenge.

“We recently went to India and worked with Child In Mind,” he explained, standing near photos of the home. The proposed well would not only provide drinking water, which runs out during the dry season but help fight forest fires. A neighbour has generously provided some of his water, but the long-term solution is a new well on two acres of land he donated two weeks ago.

Depending on the soil, the 100-metre-deep well could cost between $4,600 and $7,000. His team is accepting donations but also holding fundraising dinners and auctions, plus school challenges like team members waxing their legs and shaving their eyebrows for pledges.

To date, $20,000 has been collected for the dorm while the well campaign as part of the Global Sustainability Challenge is just getting underway.

“It’s nice to portray our project here because it gets the word out and encourages people to donate. It all starts with one person and we’ll go from there,” said Fulford.

Mariely Acevedo with Be Healthy Be Happy served traditional vegan gluten-free dishes from Venezuela. Arepas — corncakes made from a special precooked corn flour — are crispy on the outside with a soft and creamy centre. Reina pepiada arepas are a Venezuelan sandwich similar to a pita pocket.

“I like to bring Venezuelan character, its cuisine, to everyone wherever I go,” she said.

“I love to cook and when I cook Venezuelan dishes, I feel like I am in my country. Venezuela is my country, but also I like Canada. Like Cristian said, we came from another country but the welcome of people in Canada made us feel like part of this country. I am half-Canadian, Venezuelan-Canadian,” said Acevcedo with a laugh, repeating De La Luna’s joke that he is 50 per cent Canadian, 50 per cent Venezuelan after 12 years in Canada.

“I really like that people enjoy the Venezuelan food. I want to give to them the best of me. The best of my country is our heart, our food, our music, our dance, our happiness.”

De La Luna was certainly a valuable contributor with a string of Spanish and French melodies, all of them bouncy, happy numbers that had everyone smiling while on a virtual tour of Latin America.

In-between, he recounted how his parents and five children moved to Quebec.

One of the funniest stories was about a waitress offering them “gateau” (a rich cake) in French but had the family thinking it was “cat” in their native Spanish.

“I’m living a dream, just being here in front of you,” De La Luna said. “Thanks to the people here (in Canada), I’m now 50 per cent Canadian and I became a musician.”

Also in the foyer, musician Ferhad Jafo played a set on the oud, a short-neck, lute-type, pearshaped stringed instrument. In the theatre, yoga instructor Tamara McLellan explained how she offers a 60-minute yoga practice that assigns each pose one of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

“This practice marries mindfulness to international development and allows the audience to remember each goal on a cellular level rather than with their conscious mind,” she told the audience.

On Earth Day, April 22, she is hoping sustainable development goals yoga will spread across the province, across Canada and around the world.

The opener for De La Luna was Leila Neverland’s Mountain Sound which warmed up the audience with her soaring vocals, often sounding like a Canadian version of Janis Joplin. There were also humourous moments when she encouraged her bandmates to mimic the sound of a whale and the audience chimed in.

Her three-song EP, Mountain Sound, is her first commercially distributed album with Nils Loewen on cello and Dylan Ranney on drums.