Lotus Festival to kick off with campus concert

Bloomington’s Lotus World Music and Arts Festival will kick things off with a concert at Alumni Hall Sept. 26.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the festival, and IU Provost Lauren Robel said in a press release she is excited about the concert taking place on IU’s campus.

“IU is a global campus,” she said. “Lotus brings world music to Bloomington. We are wonderfully aligned in our passion for global interconnectivity and cultural exchange. The Lotus Campus Kickoff celebrates the many ways in which Bloomington is a truly global community.”

The Lotus Campus Kickoff concert, sponsored by IU and the School of Global and International Studies, will include performances from world music acts such as Chicago’s Funkadesi, Montreal’s Nomadic Massive and local band Pan-Basso.

Funkadesi has been a part of the Lotus performance lineup since 2001, and this year’s performance will be the group’s seventh appearance. The group’s musical style is described as reggae, Afro-Caribbean and Bollywood.

Nomadic Massive will make their debut Lotus appearance at the campus concert, displaying their multicultural hip-hop music for local concert-goers.

Pan-Basso, a quartet made up of IU alumni, round out the show with their Caribbean sound derived from the islands of Trinidad and Tobago.

More information about the Lotus Festival and its performers can be found on the festival’s website, www.lotusfest.org.

— Carolyn Crowcroft