Aseana Festival brings food, dance and culture to honor year of the horse

On the cover: Mary Grace De Joya-Vea

Photography: Dallas Goins

The ASEANA Asian Gardens will once again host its Spring Festival from noon until 5 p.m. March 22 at 800 Texas Ave. in downtown Shreveport.

This will be the seventh annual event sponsored by the small group of volunteers whose foundation, the Association of Southeast Asia and North America, seeks to heighten understanding and appreciation of Asian cultures.

Foundation President Lumen Corrente said, “This year, we are celebrating the Chinese culture. It happens to be the year of the horse.”

The horse is the seventh sign of the Chinese Zodiac. It allegedly symbolizes traits like strength, energy and an outgoing nature. The Chinese calendar predicts 2014 will be a profitable year for those born under the sign of the horse.

“So, we will have a few things that will give a tiny glimpse of the Chinese culture in our program,” Corrente said.

That tiny glimpse will include an eyeful of Asian dance; music; art, both graphic and martial; and plenty of the event’s most popular attraction, food. The Rusheon Middle School Band will also perform music from a Chinese composer.

The Chip-a-Lottas, a local group practicing flint knapping, will also be on hand to give demonstrations. Knapping is the ancient technique of shaping stone into tools.

The ASEANA Asian Gardens represent over seven years of volunteer labor. Originally, there were only five gardens representing the Philippines, China, Japan, India and Thailand. Now, there are 15 garden areas. Added to the original group there are plantings and statuary honoring Vietnam, Korea, Laos, Burma, Malaysia and Cambodia as well as gardens honoring the elephant, a water fountain, and the Asian islands.

As popular as the festival has become, it is centered on the vision of Lumen Corrente who wanted to create an oasis of peace and tranquility in her adopted home.

Originally from the Philippines, Corrente followed her husband to Shreveport.

He was an engineer for General Electric and worked in a liaison capacity with the U.S. Air Force at Barksdale. They spent several years traveling the world as part of that job, but eventually decided to return to Shreveport in 1972, she said.

“We liked the city. Having lived in Asia for 11 years. I consider this my home. I love the people in Shreveport. I thought it was very friendly compared to the big cities we’ve lived in. It was just so charming,” Corrente said.

The foundation’s secretary is Dr. Mary Grace De Joya- Vea. She and her husband, who is also a doctor, ended up in Shreveport not as much by choice but by chance. The couple undertook some of their medical training in New Orleans before returning to the Philippines. They lived in Metro Manila, population 10 million. De Joya-Vea said they were asked several times to return to Louisiana. Eventually, they agreed to return to work in New Orleans.

“We came in July of 2005. You know what happened in 2005. Hurricane Katrina came in August. So we were displaced. In 2006, we came here, Shreveport, and it grew on us,” De Joya-Vea said.

De Joya-Vea was introduced to Corrente through a mutual acquaintance at church. De Joya-Vea went to meet Corrente at the antique shop she still operates, Corrente Oriental Antiques on Line Avenue. “Lumen said, ‘I want you to see this garden in downtown.’ So we went there to a jungle. She just had this vision of it being a nice, serene park. So from there, together with the other Asian groups, we worked together. We’re so thankful because the people have been very nice.”

Working together, the women turned the jungle into a destination. They decided that the best way to make the serenity of the garden accessible to the public was to bring more people to their little corner of downtown. To do that, they decided to play host to street festival highlighting the best of Asian culture.

De Joya-Vea said the festival had a soft opening in 2006. “We decided it would take time to get people to go to the park and just relax,” she said. Then in 2007, they launched what would become the annual event.

From those beginnings, the ASEANA Foundation has remained a humble organization. There are still only five women who form the group, maintain the gardens, and plan and execute the spring festival and the new autumn festival added three years ago. The spring street festival highlights an Asian country, while the autumn event is “all about Asian food,” said De Joya- Vea. The group decided to add the fall event after getting positive feedback from the community and hearing that celebrating only once a year left the community looking for more. “Food helps different cultures understand each other better,” she said.

This month, the festivities open with a traditional Lion dance and will include the My Jhong Law Horn, or Lost Track Buddha Warrior, a northern Shaolin kung fu system and Tai Chi Chuan. Both martial arts forms will be demonstrated in empty hand and weapon forms.

Gabriel Musella will present original works based on Chinese folk songs, titled “The Journey of Yan Si Meng.” Richard Brown will also present a suite of Chinese music.

Robert Jager will perform music commissioned in 1991 for the Seventh Asian-Pacific Band Convention. They were originally performed by students from China, Japan, Thailand, Australia, and several other southeast Asian countries.

There will also be a group presenting Chinese dance, and capping off the day will be a traditional Dragon Dance.

–Joe Todaro

Want to go?

The seventh annual ASEANA Spring Festival: Chinese Festival Year of the Horse is free and open to the public. The only cost involved will be for purchases of food or crafts available from the vendors. The vendors already signed up for the spring festival will offer jewelry, crafts and other art for sale.

The organizers are also urge attendees to feel free to wear whatever Asian costume they might have to the festival. Corrente said, “If nothing else come and enjoy the gardens. Hopefully the daffodils and all the spring flowers will be out.”