Dancing for Fukushima with Primo Cubano March 15, 2013

Helping Japan's children recover from radiation

Dancing for Fukushima with Primo Cubano

Popular 'son' band plays benefit dance for Fukushima children's camp in Japan

Posted:  

Friday, March 15, 2013 - 2:15pm

Event Location: 

Billy's Tavern

Event Date: 

Saturday, March 23, 2013 - 8:30pm to 11:30pm

Children at Fukushima's Sado Island Respite Camp in Japan. Primo Cubano (below) will perform at a benefit dance at Billy's Tavern on March 23 to raise funds for the project.

THOMASTON — Popular Cuban music dance band Primo Cubano will return to Billy's Tavern in Thomaston on Saturday, March 23, for a benefit night of dancing for Fukushima's Sado Island Respite Camp in Japan. The event is being organized by the Midcoast Maine Fukushima Awareness Group, a local group of concerned citizens.
The camp, an ongoing project of Fukushima educator Hsiao Seki, provides children of Fukushima Prefecture a respite from the continuous radiation exposure in their homes and surroundings since the disaster at the Daiichi nuclear facility in March 2011. Originally established as the Ryozen-Satoyama School, it is a nature camp for city children to experience the outdoors. After the meltdown at the nuclear power plant, the camp moved to Sado Island and the vision changed to provide a place for Fukushima children to go to help their bodies recover from the ongoing radiation exposure. The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster was a series of equipment failures, nuclear meltdowns, and releases of radioactive materials at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, following the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011. It is the largest nuclear disaster since the Chernobyl disaster of 1986, and only the second disaster (along with Chernobyl) to measure Level 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale.

Primo Cubano plays traditional and contemporary Cuban music, incorporating the popular "son" style that moved out of Cuba in the late 1990s and is a primary contributor to the blend of Latin styles today known as salsa. The band of four Maine musicians is known to pack dance halls throughout New England and is co-sponsoring the benefit dance with the Midcoast Peace and Justice Group, the Dancing 4 Fun Saturday Dance Group and Billy's Tavern.

A showing of the film Fukushima, Never Again will precede the dance event on Thursday, March 21, at 6:30 p.m. at Rockland Public Library. More information about the situation in Fukushima will also be available at the dance.

The event will run from 8:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m., and there is a suggested donation at the door of $10. Billy's will close its kitchen early in order to clear the decks for dancing.

Billy's Tavern is located at the corner of Beechwood and Starr Streets, behind the downtown business block, in Thomaston. For more information, or to volunteer or to make a contribution, call 594-1478. For details about the respite/recuperation project, visit hettsuisado.blogspot.com.

Event Details:

Event Date: 

Sat, 03/23/2013 - 8:30pm to 11:30pm

Event Location: 

Billy's Tavern

Address: 

1 Starr Street

Thomaston  Maine

Contact Phone: 

(207) 594-1478