“Our goal is to create a festival that will become a centerpiece of Maine’s cultural landscape,” said Executive Director Phyllis O’Neill.

Sixty-five artists and ensembles representing 25 countries will offer 160 separate performances at 10 locations during the three festival days. Performers will come from roots music, ethnic music and dance traditions; and jazz, rock and hip-hop. There will be music for dancing, and dance in performance; poetry, puppetry, theater, media arts and performances for children.

Portland’s main thoroughfare, Congress Street, will be closed to traffic from Longfellow Square to Congress Square, creating a pedestrian mall and international food and crafts bazaar. The festival will include street performances, giant video projections overhead and on the sides of buildings, large performance tents and an ongoing cultural carnival of the unexpected, organizers say. A CyberFestival within the event will include giant projections of digitally manipulated video images, a computerized cell-phone photo gallery and a radio/audio portrait of Portland in celebration.

Artists from around the globe will represent the area’s local communities from the Irish, Italians, French Canadians and Armenians to the newer American communities of Sudanese, Somalis, Congolese, Latinos, Cambodians, Eastern Europeans and Middle Eastern countries.

O’Neill and Artistic Director Bau Graves are experienced festival producers: O’Neill directed the Maine Festival for 10 years and Graves founded the New Year’s/Portland celebration in 1983 and directed its programs for five years. As the founding directors of the Center for Cultural Exchange, they’ve produced hundreds of events, serving hundreds of thousands of people and worked with performing artists from more than 50 countries.

The Center for Cultural Exchange is a not-for-profit institution dedicated to cultural diversity through arts and education programs.

All of the performances (except at Congress Square) will be indoors or undercover in tents, so the festival will go ahead, regardless of the weather.

For additional information about the festival, to volunteer or to learn about vendor opportunities, people can call (207) 761-0591, ext. 106

A single ticket ($20 advance or $25 at the door, with discounts for children 12 and under, seniors and groups) will allow admission to all of the scheduled performances. Friday night will be a gala festival kickoff. The festival will be open Saturday and Sunday from noon to midnight. Tickets will be sold at Hannafords Supermarkets, at the Center for Cultural Exchange box office and online at centerforculturalexchange.org.

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