Lowriders, lucha and local fun make UMANI Festival a success

MOSES LAKE — Third Avenue in Moses Lake was a colorful place to be Saturday, with brightly-clad dancers, lowrider cars gleaming in the September sun and wrestlers in gaudy masks body-slamming each other in a ring. “It was amazing,” said Columbia Basin Allied Arts Director Shawn Cardwell, one of the organizers of the event. “Best year ever.” The third annual UMANI Festival, a celebration of Hispanic heritage in Moses Lake, was the best-attended so far, Cardwell said. There were performances by the CeAtl Tonalli traditional Aztec dance troupe and the world-renowned La Muchacha from Colombia, as well as other entertainers from closer to home. There were games and crafts for the whole family provided by the Moses Lake Museum & Art Center and workshops in music, dance and art at The Obra Project. But much of the energy came from the lowrider car show and the lucha libre wrestling.