A strong national focus will see many of the most popular African artists across Canada including Vancouver based Alpha Yaya Diallo, Ottawa's Mighty Popo and a special feature act bringing together one of the most popular Toronto groups of the first Afrofest, Nakupenda, led by Theo Yaw Boakye.
Enjoy free music workshops at the Baobab Tree Stage and the Youth Zone, which has an expanded program oriented to youth including music theatre and poetry with Lameck Williams, Anne Marie Woods, Stolen From Africa, Jane Musoke-Nteyafas, Hajile Kalaike, Bahli Tesfa, Reverse, Halisi, Cafric, and also two plays - "Absolute Democracy", an abridged version of a play originally written by Seifu Belachew and Neguise, and "All In The Lyrics", Muoi Nene’s new play that uses wit, laughter and music to tell an amusing futuristic story.
For the younger ones there is a Children's Village area, with activities designed to teach and inform about African culture through art and crafts, drumming, and storytelling with SwizzleStick Theatre, Christopher Pineiro for facepainting, Robert Faulkner for Stilt workshops for kids, clay artist Audrey Hudson, drumming and dance, arts & crafts.
Afrofest 2008 will be broadcast from Queen's Park on both days live on CIUT 89.5 FM. CBC will again record some of the performances for future broadcast as well as bringing Big City, Small World live on Saturday from 5pm to 6pm.
Music Africa is the producer of Afrofest, Toronto's festival of Canadian and international African music since 1989, and other events to promote African culture throughout the year.
Enjoy one-stop shopping at our space on myspace for pix, vids and news about our upcoming presentations, especially Afrofest.
Music Africa gratefully acknowledges the support of the Department of Canadian Heritage, Ontario Trillium Foundation, Toronto Arts Council, Ontario Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts and The Elementary Teachers of Ontario. Thanks also to our media co-presenters CIUT, CBC Radio and Planet Africa.
