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Wed, 23 Oct 2019 20:10:48 +0000

Penn State Berks sponsors ‘Breaking Barriers – Building Bridges’ admin Wed, 10/23/2019 - 16:10 October 30, 2019
Penn State Berks will join forces with Reading Senior High School and local artists to present a community program titled “Breaking Barriers – Building Bridges” beginning at 5:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 8, at Reading High School, 801 N 13th St., Reading, Pennsylvania. The event free and open to the public and appropriate for audiences of all ages.

The goal of the program is to bring all members of the local community together through the arts. “This event hopes to break barriers of stereotypes so that we can build bridges between groups to strengthen our community,” explained Donna Chambers, director of the Penn State Berks Center for Academic Community Engagement.

The event will begin with a children’s pop-up artist studio with arts and crafts at 5:30 p.m. The program will begin with a concert of live music by Los Monstros, a regional Latin Band. There will be dance performances by community groups Barrio Alegria, Rize, W.H. Dance Academy and local hip hop artist Jamsniera, as well as the Penn State Berks Hip Hop Club and Penn State Berks Step Club.

Spoken word performances will be presented by Lisa De La Cruz, podcaster and content creator; David Nazario, author and poet; Noah Ayala, poet and spoken word artist; Anthony Orozco, freelance writer and reporter; Genesis Del Pilar Munoz Arias, Penn State Berks student and Reading High School graduate; and Jayne Brown, Reading Poet Laureate and retired professor from Penn State Berks.

The event is produced by Red Tie Affairs, and they will provide the registration and DJ / MC services and sound equipment.

The evening will conclude with a live painting of the event as it unfolds by artist Juan Carlos Ruiz, a professional artist and muralist from Reading.

Register for the event or for more information, contact Chambers at dmc6004@psu.edu.