Kwanzaa Comes Early to CSI
Musical extravaganza keyed to youth gets everyone up and dancing 

Staten Island Advance - Saturday, December 08, 2007

One word sums up the 31st annual Kwanzaa event at the College of Staten Island (CSI) last night: Infectious.

So riveting were all the African and African-American songs, dance, poetry, music and drumbeats that all that magic simply flowed off the stage and straight into the crowd, where audience members could be seen shaking, moving, clapping and dancing in their seats.

Program director and coordinator CSI Professor Charles Thomas served the evening up to the community as he always does -- with enthusiasm, grace, inspiration and the fierce determination to make sure everyone has a good time.

And the crowd was certainly ready to party.

With the evening's theme of "Passing the Torch to Our Youth," more than 220 people -- most of them young -- showed up, and CSI did not disappoint.

"Kwanzaa is about celebration," Staten Island's own Kwanzaa Lady, Janet Robinson, told the eager crowd.

"Our accent [is] on the youth," noted Prof. Thomas. "And our place is filled with youth tonight and they are going to perform and show you what they can do, and they are going to see the adults and people who are role models."

The show kicked off on a high note as Harold Williams and his PS 14 Children of the Village performance group took to the stage with drummers garnering howls and applause from the audience before they even played a single note. Then the young female dancers dressed in colorful skirts of blue, orange, red and yellow offered the Funga, a traditional welcoming African folk dance. And the girls sang out [to] the audience who sang right back at them and who then applauded wildly when the dancers did their moves in double and triple time.

"PS 14 is [in] the house!" said new CSI President Tomas Morales, who put an emphasis on education for the young guests. "This college is your college ... and if you work hard, you have a seat here, especially because in today's world a college education is absolutely necessary to move forward."

Then the party continued with a performance by the Nubian Starlets. Legendary jazz flautist Bobbi Humphrey, dressed in a slinky black dress and tan shawl, wowed the crowd with a jazz-styled version of Lionel Richie's "Hello".

One of the evening's highlights was actor Lou Myers. Myers, 62, a critically acclaimed actor best known as Vernon Gaines in the sitcom "A Different World," kicked off his performance playing a jazzy piano and signing "It's Time to Rain Down Love."

Then he offered up an old African song and asked the young people in the audience if they remembered it. Whether they did or not was irrelevant, once the African drums kicked in and Myers started singing, dancing, strutting, twirling and shuffling across the stage -- he had everyone eating out of the palm of his hand.

The evening included plenty more appearances, including Terry Rowden, rapper Philos, Frank Lucas Jr. and The Lady Panthers.

The event was sponsored by [The] City University of New York Black Male Initiative Program, in conjunction with the CSI program in African American Studies and the Department of Performing and Creative Arts.

Kwanzaa, which runs from Dec. 26 through Jan. 1, was created to honor and celebrate the contributions and heritage of African and African-American peoples, as well as recognize the ancestors whose work made their advancement possible.

By Kiawana Rich
Reprinted here with permission from the