The Intersection of Visual Design and Cultural Arts: Carnaval Dance & Costume Making

San Francisco’s Carnaval is a vibrant tradition that brings community across the Bay Area together with music, dance, and visual spectacles. Raffaella Falchi Macias is a quadrilingual multi-disciplinary artist and architect who focuses on community-building in the arts, and who leads an annual Samba parade contingent featuring over 100 dancers of all ages. Explore the development of Carnaval costume design and learn how she curates and builds one of a kind costumes that transform the streets of San Francisco’s Mission District with vibrant rhythm.

Raffaella Falchi Macias is Youth Art Exchange’s executive director since January 2020 after more than 13 years as a faculty artist, director of programs, and previously acting as the deputy director. She is an educator, designer, dancer and choreographer and holds a B.A. in psychology from UC Berkeley and a Masters in Architecture from California College of the Arts. She is an architectural designer with a keen sense of cultural awareness, and an aptitude for selecting color and organizing space. She received a fellowship from CCA and worked with the favela community of Manguinhos in Rio de Janeiro under the Brazilian architect Jorge Mario Jauregui and his Favela/Barrio project. She has spent over a decade as an educator teaching architecture and dance to public high school students. Her multicultural heritage inspired her interest in the visual and performing arts. She is the founder and artistic director of Sambaxé dance company, and is a world dance faculty member at the ODC in San Francisco as well as being part of the ODC Pilot 64 program. She proudly speaks Spanish, Italian and Portuguese. Raffaella wears many hats, but is able to wear each hat well.

Presented in partnership with the Eugene Public Library Foundation and Eugene Public Library, all lecture series events are free and open to the public, and begin at 12pm using Zoom on the second Friday of each month. The Zoom room will open at 11:45am. Advanced registration is required by 10am the day of the event.