Orange represented at Heritage Parade and MACFest

ORANGE, NJ — The city of Orange Township was well represented at the 50th annual African-American Heritage Parade in downtown Newark on Sunday, May 28, as well as the third annual East Orange Music, Arts and Culture Festival, or “MACFest,” in City Hall Plaza on Saturday, June 17.

The Orange-based Flamingo Precision Drill Team Color Guard and Drum Corps performed on the grandstand in front of City Hall for the thousands of people who lined Broad Street in downtown Newark for the signature event, and Debbie Rembert, the Orange Dance Conservatory director and a teacher at Park Avenue School, was also present with another dance team to perform at the MACFest.

Rembert is responsible for organizing the Orange Public Schools Annual Dance Festival that celebrated its sixth anniversary on Sunday, April 30. But she was at the annual African-American Heritage Parade and annual MACFest with the Concepts in Choreography dance team funded, in part, by New Jersey Democratic Party gubernatorial candidate Phil Murphy.

“My dance company was invited to be on the float and also to perform for Phil Murphy,” said Rembert on Sunday, May 28. “It is awesome. It’s the first time. It’s a really great experience for the kids — very enriching. Great to see all the floats and performers and the bands. We’re actually here under the umbrella of Concepts in Choreography.”

And Rembert and Concepts in Choreography were also at MACFest, along with other local performers, including rappers 10 Stacks and Stiff Lauren and the youth group Young People for Peace, which performed an updated homage to East Orange hip-hop music legends Naughty By Nature’s hit song “O.P.P.” But the young performers call-and-response hook was “You down with Y.P.P.” instead of “You down with O.P.P.”

“The young people out here are doing stuff, they’ve got businesses. People out here are doing things; it’s not always about criminals,” Casim Gomez Jr., an aide to Mayor Lester Taylor, said. Gomez, son of the East Orange Councilman with the same name, is also a member of the Young Professionals of East Orange group, which hosts dance, artistic and cultural events such as the MACFest in East Orange.

“I helped found this event. My first year working in the city, we didn’t have anything like this. We got some vendors and local people who came out and it’s very important that we continue to do stuff like this,” Gomez said at the event.

East Orange Recreation Department Director Osner Charles agreed with Gomez, adding the annual event is the perfect platform to educate the public about Black History and culture, such as Juneteenth, which also became a part of the MACFest for the first time this year, thanks to a collaboration with Natasha Akinyele and Queen Amina, who put up historical displays on the steps of City Hall. Celebrated June 19, Juneteenth commemorates the announcement of the abolition of slavery in Texas.

“It’s dope, because the history behind Juneteenth is a part of our culture, so being able to display some of this work and enlightening some of our people that are here in the community, who may not know the history of Juneteenth, just enriches the culture that we’re trying to provide in MACFest,” said Charles on Saturday, June 17.

“It’s very, very important to have a good working relationship with local city government,” organizer Queen Amina said Saturday, June 17. “It’s symbiotic; we need each other. This is a beautiful town, we’re predominantly African-American and we have a lot of beautiful, multitalented, multipositive people here and it’s important for us to know ourselves. So as we move forward into the future, we always have to remember where we come from, how great we are and how great we’re meant to be. I’m proud of that red, black and green flag. We have to keep it going for us. We can’t expect anybody else to do it. This is ours.”

  Casim Gomez, MACfest