Bolivia native Luis Siwarpuma Morató-Lara will present a bilingual and trilingual poetic performance at HACC, Central Pennsylvania's Community College, at 7pm on Wednesday, December 1. Voices of Mother Earth, featuring combined poetry in English, Spanish, and the native language of the Andean region, Quechuan, is a free event in the Rose Lehrman Arts Center studio theatre on HACC's Harrisburg Campus.

Morató-Lara's bilingual performance, in English and Spanish, is a selection of poems from his work, Condors of Love and Death. A reading follows from his Quechuan opera, Somber Humanity. A combination of all three languages is next with selected poems from the newly completed Golden Poetry: Kallawaya Words to cure the Startled. The work is part of a new three-volume poetry book on Kallawaya sacred poetry which also includes Poesía áurea, poesía argéntea: Palabra kallawaya para curar el susto in Spanish and Quri jarawi, qulqi jarawi: Kallawaya simi mancharisqata jampinapaq in Quechua.

At the end of the readings is an open discussion.

Morató-Lara is an assistant professor of humanities and Spanish at Penn State Harrisburg. He teaches courses on interdisciplinary written and oral literatures, cultures, and civilizations, Colonial and Post-colonial Hispanic American and indigenous ethnic nations arts, and Spanish language. Born in Cochabamba, Bolivia, Morató-Lara studied economics at the Universidad de San Simón in Cochabamba. He earned a doctorate and master of arts degree in Hispanic and Spanish literature with specialization in Hispanic and indigenous peoples, written and oral literatures at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa.

The multilingual Bolivian taught Quechua language and Andean culture in San Simón University, New Tribes, C.U.S.O., and Spanish and Quechua (Bolivian and Peruvian) in the Tawantinsuyu Language Institute, where he has also been its director in Cochabamba.

Morató-Lara also taught cusco-collao Quechua in the Andean Pastoral Institute in Cuzco, Peru. In Cochabamba, he has worked in the Bolivian-German Center, the Aliens Frances, and in several secondary schools. As a radio personality on Radio Center, he broadcast many programs on Andean culture, including one-man plays of traditional Andean stories. He was one of the main actors of the theater troupe Runa, and performed for various years in plays with Andean themes.

The event is sponsored by HACC's institutional diversity committee and professional growth committee.