The Evanston lakefront, where Dawes Park sits at Sheridan Road and Church Street. Photo: James Conkis / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Dawes Park, the lakefront green at Sheridan Road and Church Street, was set to fill with flags, music and cooking smoke July 20-21 for the 28th annual Evanston Ethnic Arts Festival. Hours were noon to 7 p.m. both days. The festival is organized by the City of Evanston.
Flags from more than 100 nations ring the park’s lagoon and fountains, and about 125 artist-vendors representing traditions from around the world sell their work. Two stages carry the entertainment.
The music
Saturday’s Central Stage lineup included Guitarra Azul, playing North African and Mediterranean music; Magic Carpet, with music from the Middle East, India and Africa; the all-women klezmer band Isle of Klezbos; and Matuto, which blends Appalachian and Afro-Brazilian sounds. Sunday’s schedule featured The Barefoot Hawaiian, with dance and music from Hawaii, Tahiti and Polynesia; Bollywood Groove, with Bollywood and bhangra; Las Bom Pleneras, an all-female Puerto Rican bomba and plena group; reggae artist Ras Kwame Bediao; and the Occidental Brothers Dance Band, which plays international classics and West African dance music.
The Family Stage offered performances by the Irish Music School of Chicago, the Mexican Folkloric Dance Company, Indonesian Performing Arts Chicago, Kuumba Lynx Performance Ensemble, the Philippine American Cultural Foundation, Chicago DanzTheatre and S.O.U.L. Creations. Kalapriya presented Indian music and dance, and Il Kwa Nori presented Korean music and dance.
Food, crafts and parking
Children’s activities included origami, face painting, papel picado, Moroccan clay drums, maraca-making, tie-dye, mehndi and Lithuanian folk motifs. The food ranged from Jamaican jerk chicken, tilapia tacos and gyros to tamales, crab rangoon, gelato and smoothies, with vegetarian choices available.
Parking was free in a Northwestern University lot three blocks north of the park, with free shuttle buses running between the lot and the festival.
The event has a long local history. Accounts differ on when it began, with some placing the idea in 1983 and others dating the festival to 1986, but it grew out of an effort to bring Evanston’s ethnic communities into the city’s arts programming. In 1990, Mayor Joan Barr declared the third week of July Ethnic Arts Week. Crowds for the weekend are commonly estimated at up to 30,000. In 2014 the festival was slated to shift to nearby Centennial Park because of construction at the Dawes Park lagoon, and it was later renamed the World Arts and Music Festival.
Festival details came from the City of Evanston’s announcement.
Rachel Lindqvist covers community life, the lakefront, dining and the arts for The Evanston Edge.
