A Latin "Presencia" on Campus

Presencia Latina, an upcoming showcase of arts groups on campus, is more than just a show—it’s a celebration of culture, and a refusal to be labeled. This collaborative effort will feature a wide range of Harvard’s Latin culture, everything from dance to music to poetry. “We don’t have a specific theme,” says Maricela Lupercio ’15, president of Presencia Latina. “It is just celebrating all of the Latino culture here on campus through art.”

This performance is truly all-encompassing, as it is the only show on campus that incorporates all of Harvard’s Latin cultural groups. “You can’t sum up Latino culture in one club—that’s impossible. But this show tries to bring them all together and bring the community together,” board member Greta M. Solinap ’13 says. The show also makes an effort to extend an invitation to those outside of the Latin community. Any student who was interested in being a part of the showcase was invited to audition.

Multiple well-known college cultural performers will be featured this year, such as Mariachi Véritas de Harvard, Ballet Folklórico de Aztlán de Harvard, and Tufts’s Latin Ballroom club. Even youth from La Piñata, a Boston cultural group, will be coming to perform. “It’s kind of the idea that we’re not just one thing, we’re a lot of different things,” Lupercio says.

While the performance works to celebrate the many facets of Latin culture, it is simultaneously conscious of the preconceptions that surround that culture. “Through many of the pieces we try to challenge stereotypes that Latinos and many cultural communities are held to,” talent director Jesus E. Moran ’16 says. “We definitely try to embrace our culture…through our dances and our singing. So a lot of it is Spanish dance and a lot of them are different Latin American dances, but we try to also challenge what society holds us to be.”