Navy Pier will be holding the first edition of the free music festival LatiNxt this weekend June 15-16, where artists from all over will take over the stage to perform an array of alternative music, that in some way or another will be linked with traditional Latin music.
20 different artists and/or bands from first and second latino generations will showcase a new cultural identity that’s being formed as a result of the fusion of culture and heritage, said the organizers of LatiNxt. Some of those artists, they said, are rising stars in the music community and much of their exposure is still limited in the broader US music market.
“We’re looking to attract first and second generation Latinos to bring something refreshing to Navy Pier, which is a tourist attraction recognized at an international level,” said Daniel Crane, coordinator of the Navy Pier programs.
The free festival will debut on Friday with Dolor Folktronico at 5:30 pm, and on Saturday performances start at 2 pm with Ayana Contreras, both of them being Chicago-based musicians.
The festival aims to shed more light onto these growing artists by providing them a platform that will help them celebrate their “roots as well as to celebrate the possibilities of the future,” according to the organizers.
Even though the music festival is Latino-oriented, it aims to expose the music to a broader audience that would then follow the unique fusion of Latin rhythms.
“(The artists) are intent on not leaving their roots… it’s a way to share traditions but also keep more modern elements like pop or funk,” said Sandra Treviño, one of the organizers of the festival. “It’s a great opportunity for families to come together, and have their grandmothers listen to cumbia, where they will realize they’re actually dancing to electronic or new cumbia, something that they had never heard before.”
The festival will be presented by Sol and co-curated by Future Rootz, a collective of Latinx music curators, artists, tastemakers and socio-cultural investigators whose work focuses on representing art without any limits created by borders.
The performances will take place at the Polk Bros Park Performance Lawns, Wave Wall and Miller Lite Beer Garden stages. Pier Park will also hold a Tianguis (crafts fair) by Pachanga and a record fair by Sonorama on Saturday.
“The Latin music that is out there is either strictly traditional or very commercialized pop. Unfortunately, this type of music doesn’t have such an audience yet because they’re working independently, but if we push it, so people listen to it, people will start going more to these events.”
To see the full lineup and schedule click here.
Ita Tsai is a freelance writer at HOY Chicago. She studies Journalism and Media Communications at Universidad Carlos III in Madrid, Spain.
