Six performing arts groups and as many community arts activities will highlight the cultures of the Asian, South Asian, and Pacific Islander community in Evanston during the 2022 Umbrella Arts Festival on May 14 in Fountain Square.

Funkadesi, the featured performing group, blends music from a variety of cultures, including African American, Reggae, Brazilian, West African, folk, and Bollywood.

Evanston resident Rahul Sharma, founder of Funkadesi, said his group wanted to participate in the Umbrella Arts Festival “to support this growing Asian American programming that’s happening.”

Funkadesi will bring its full band to close out the festival from 4 to 6 p.m.

Sharma said their performance will be a “trans-global party — something that celebrates South Asian culture while at the same time really showing musical solidarity and festivity within other cultural influences.”

Mandala South Asian Performing Arts will also perform at the event. “We are committed to supporting the arts and culture and education about South Asian traditions and how they evolved in the diaspora,” said Associate Artistic Director Ashwaty Chennat.

For the festival, they will present traditional South Asian dances. One of the forms they will present “uses percussive footwork, expressive hand gestures, and facial expressions to tell stories from folk tales and mythology from the South Asian continent,” Chennat said. “It helps to illustrate the dynamism in the music.”

Chennat praised the Umbrella Arts Festival as “a space for us to share and celebrate our heritage.”

Other performances will be by Flying Fairies, doing traditional Chinese folk dances; Nayon Troupe, doing traditional Filipino dances; HANA Pungmul Drummers; and Bollywood Groove.

Ajanta Chakraborty of Bollywood Groove will lead a dance-along, teaching Bollywood moves for people of all ages.

There will be a half-dozen arts-related activities, including making a lantern, folding paper cranes, and using folding paper techniques to make a book.

All of the entertainment and activities are free but Indian food will be sold by Mt. Everest Restaurant and Nayon will be selling traditional Filipino breads and desserts.

Melissa Raman Molitor started the festival last May because of “the increase in anti-Asian rhetoric and violence and hate,” she said. “It was really apparent that there was very little in the way of voices and resources and support for the local Asian, South Asian, and Pacific Islander community.”

As a result the Evanston ASAPIA was started. “The festival was the focal point of that,” Raman Molitor explained. “It invited everyone in the community into that space and into that conversation.”

The event is also sponsored by the City of Evanston, Asian American Caucus, Illinois Arts Council, and Evanston Arts Council, plus other organizations and local businesses.

Raman Molitor reported that a related event will be a lantern-floating ceremony at Arrington Lagoon in Evanston’s Dawes Park on May 31. Raman Molitor is director of Kids Create Change, the organization that is presenting that event.

“The goal is to give the community an opportunity to honor and memorialize the losses that a lot of people had to deal with in isolation during the pandemic,” she said. She added that the losses include jobs and special celebrations, in addition to people. Some of the lanterns will be made at the Umbrella Arts Festival.

“The glue is really community-building,” Raman Molitor concluded.

Umbrella Arts Festival

When: 1-6 p.m. May 14

Where: Fountain Square, Davis Street at Sherman and Orrington Avenues, Evanston

Tickets: Admission is free

Information: 773-294-7051; evanstonaspa.org/umbrella-arts-festival-2022

Myrna Petlicki is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.