Making Movies Announce Music & Arts Festival CELEBRATE AMERI’KANA: Celebrating Our Future. Celebrating Our Heroes. Celebrate Our Unity.
Festival Artwork designed by Edwing Mendez and Chico Sierra.
For more information, visit celebrateamerikana.com
(Kansas City, MO – August 14, 2023) – Latin Grammy nominated band Making Movies curates Celebrate AMERI’KANA, a music and arts festival that celebrates the Black, Indigenous, Latino, and Immigrant heroes of American music. The FREE day-long festival takes place September 10 at The Concourse Park in the Historic Northeast neighborhood in Kansas City, from 1pm - 8pm.
Following the migration of American music from the port cities of the Gulf of Mexico and up the Mississippi river, Celebrate AMERI’KANA showcases the diversity and cross-pollinated nature of American music—the particular alchemy of blues, zydeco, gospel, rock ‘n’ roll, jazz, and son jarocho. The festival is both a celebration of our shared musical lineage and a reminder, in this time of division, that music transcends all barriers and boundaries.
The festival will include performances from: Texmaniacs, Dos Santos, The Salvation Choir, Talibah Safiya, Parranderos Latin Combo, Kate Cosentino, Trevor Turla, youth performers from the Rebel Song Academy, and more. The Mercado will feature local artists, creators, growers, and small businesses.
September 10, 2023
Concourse Park
1pm (doors 12:30pm) - 8pm
Mercado: An International Open-Air Market 1pm - 6pm
On September 9th, The Ship will host a Cultural Celebration and Pre-Party for Celebrate AMERI’KANA. Tickets are $15 and available at celebrateamerikana.com. Celebrate AMERI'KANA supports Art as Mentorship, a Kansas City non-profit that empowers young artists to write their own success stories.
The full AMERI’KANA platform, beyond this festival, includes a multi-platform multi-media project, and aims to propel cultural movement that communicates the deeper purpose of the band Making Movies: to inspire people (students, fans, and musicians) to reassess their own sense of identity through music. It is a manifestation of the passion that drives their music-making, and it is an extension of the ever-deepening roots of the band’s identity. AMERI’KANA is a partnership among Making Movies, Yonas Media, and Art as Mentorship. "We dreamed of creating a festival where music and culture are mixed in with activism, " says bassist, Diego Chi, "because when you bring different groups and causes together through the arts, it's incredible what can be accomplished."
Art as Mentorship
Art as Mentorship (AM) is a community arts nonprofit whose mission is to empower young people to write their own success stories. The organizations was formally created in 2017 by Enrique Chi, lead guitarist and vocalist for the band Making Movies. Inspiration for AM was born out of six previous years of running a collaborative music education camp at the Mattie Rhodes Center. In 2018 AM launched The Rebel Song Academy, a music camp that uses songwriting as a tool to explore selfhood and mental health and helps young artists explore their full potential through creativity and mentorship - fostering their inherent sense of exploration and achievement.
Making Movies
Siembra y llegará: As Making Movies delivers its fourth album, XOPA, the Kansas City band proves true the maxim which, in English, is like an encouraging version of “reap what you sow.” Meant to inspire its recipient to push forward, the phrase is chanted on the LP’s multi-movement epic, “La Primera Radio” — but it’s exemplary, too, of Making Movies’ musical odyssey. Each member — Enrique Chi, vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter; his brother Diego Chi, bassist and experimental vocalist; percussionist Juan-Carlos Chaurand; and Duncan Burnett, newly incorporated into the band on drums — is enthusiastically committed to music history, to uncovering connections between genres and cultures both their own and otherwise. They’re all lifelong musicians too, hailing from disparate yet similar backgrounds — parents that cherished music, fathers that kickstarted cultural movements, families in which gospel is critical to their very existence. “The goal is to create music that includes every bit of our individual identities,” Enrique says. “Music is our way to find a deeper understanding of our own stories. It’s a healing of sorts.”
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Making Movies has turned heads as a Tiny Desk newcomer (with "A La Deriva"), a voice for immigrant rights (with "I Am Another You" which reached #3 on Billboard's Latin Pop Album chart), and as a co-writer alongside salsa icon Rubén Blades (with Latin GRAMMY nominated song "No Te Calles”). Making Movies has toured extensively, appearing with the likes of Arcade Fire, Rubén Blades, Los Lobos, Hurray For the Riff Raff, Bomba Estereo, Galactic, Flor De Toloache, and Thievery Corporation. In 2022, the band released their fourth studio album, XOPA, and began their tour with two high-profile international appearances on Panama National TV and at Vive Latino in Mexico. Making Movies 2022 international and US tour includes more than 30 dates across nine months.