Wednesday, February 22, 2023
  Around Campus

By News and Internal Communications

By Santana Peralez

RIO GRANDE VALLEY, TEXAS – UTRGV is bringing the joy and wonder of literacy to the community with its annual Festival of International Books & Arts (FESTIBA).

FESTIBA, an educational and entertaining event that promotes literacy and appreciation of reading for all ages, starts Feb. 25 and runs through March 5. 

Dr. Dahlia Guerra, special assistant to the dean of the College Fine Arts at UTRGV, said each year the festival has a new theme.

“We do that to inspire the community through the cultural arts, and to remind our community of the importance of promoting literacy, especially early childhood literacy,” she said.

The theme for this year’s FESTIBA is “Transforming our World Through Arts and Literacy.”

“The theme this year highlights the transformative power of the arts, which can touch us and move us, and points to the arts as a great source of inspiration to bring people together and transform communities,” Guerra said.

By focusing on transformation, FESTIBA hopes to show how the creative and cultural arts create spaces in which people can share their experiences, no matter how different their lives and experiences are.

Some of the highlights of FESTIBA 2023 include:

  • The Community Festival, taking place Feb. 24 at the Dustin M. Sekula Memorial Library in Edinburg;
  • A writing workshop Feb. 27 with San Antonio Poet Laureate Andrea “Vocab” Sanderson
  • A poetry performance and Q&A with Sanderson and frontera storyteller, poet and biographer Gris Muñoz.
  • A piano concert with internationally renown pianist Robert Satterlee.
  • And The FESTIBA Mariachi Festival, which includes masterclasses, competitions and a concert featuring Mariachi Sol de México de José Hernández on March 3 through 4.

“I am delighted that FESTIBA is still a significant university festival after 17 years,” Guerra said. “It has been a wonderful opportunity throughout the years to showcase our university, our students and our faculty to the community. It’s also a great occasion to gather each year and bring national and international talent in music, art and literary fields to our campus. It’s a great way to inspire our students and the community alike.”

For a complete list of FESTIBA events as well as more information on times, tickets and locations, visit https://www.utrgv.edu/festiba/program/booklet/index.htm

For more information on FESTIBA as a whole visit https://www.utrgv.edu/festiba/index.htm



ABOUT UTRGV

The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) was created by the Texas Legislature in 2013 as the first major public university of the 21st century in Texas. This transformative initiative provided the opportunity to expand educational opportunities in the Rio Grande Valley, including a new School of Medicine, and made it possible for residents of the region to benefit from the Permanent University Fund – a public endowment contributing support to the University of Texas System and other institutions.

UTRGV has campuses and off-campus research and teaching sites throughout the Rio Grande Valley including in Boca Chica Beach, Brownsville (formerly The University of Texas at Brownsville campus), Edinburg (formerly The University of Texas-Pan American campus), Harlingen, McAllen, Port Isabel, Rio Grande City, and South Padre Island. UTRGV, a comprehensive academic institution, enrolled its first class in the fall of 2015, and the School of Medicine welcomed its first class in the summer of 2016.