Music, magic and more at Newark 350 Family Fun Festival

by JAY LUSTIG
KENNY LATTIMORE

KENNY LATTIMORE

The Newark 350 Family Fun Festival, scheduled for Saturday in Newark’s Military Park, has announced its schedule — a full day of music, dance, poetry, children’s entertainment and more to launch a year-long celebration of the 350th anniversary of the creation of the city of Newark.

Saturday’s event will include free performances by R&B singer Kenny Lattimore, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra’s Brass Quartet, Carolyn Dorfman Dance and Nai-Ni Chen Dance, and others.

Meanwhile, initiatives announced for later this year and next year include free tickets to Devils games, $3.50 tickets to select NJPAC events, free Newark Museum family memberships for every household in the city, free “Ward Jam” concerts throughout the city, a Newark Celebration 350 film festival, and the making of a documentary about the late writer and activist Amiri Baraka.

For updates, visit the Newark Celebration 350 Facebook page.

Here is the schedule for Saturday’s events:

11 a.m.: Creation Nation Art & Peace Parade, featuring Animodule sculptures (large, mobile animal sculptures) and marching bands. The parade starts at NJPAC, runs down Center Street, makes a left on Broad Street, a left on Park Place, repeats the same route, then ends in Military Park.

MAIN STAGE
12:30 p.m.: New Jersey Symphony Orchestra’s Brass Quartet
1 p.m.: Felix Hernandez’s Family FunRhythm Revue Dance Party (also broadcast live on WBGO Jazz 88.3 FM).
2 p.m.: Special Ensemble (youth vocal performance group)
2:30 p.m.: Poetry by participants in the upcoming 2016 Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation Poetry Festival
2:40 p.m.: NJPAC’s Wells Fargo Jazz for Teens
3:45 p.m.: Angela Johnson
4 p.m.: Kenny Lattimore
4:15 p.m.: Family dance party with DJ Tony Touch

MOVEMENT TENT
12:30 p.m.: Nai-Ni Chen Dance presents The Ten Elements of Chinese Dance Workshop
1 p.m.: Yoga sessions with Newark Yoga Movement
1:30 p.m.: Carolyn Dorfman Dance
2 p.m.: Nai-Ni Chen Dance presents Ribbon Dance Workshop
2:30 p.m.: Freestyle exhibition by FloydLittle’s Double Dutch
3:30 p.m.: Afro Brazilian Arts & Education Academy

DEMO TENT
Noon: “Animal Tracks and Signs”
1 p.m.: Mario the Magician
2 p.m.: “Science Circus”
3 p.m.: African drumming with QueenMother Imakhu MuNeferet
4 p.m.: Storyteller Queen Nur

Other attractions include an instrument petting zoo, a scavenger hunt, sand art, a bracelet making workshop, a pumpkin-carving demonstration and more.

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