Hola Festival, tres: Making Music and Dancing

Music erupts in the street - Hola Festival, Knoxville 2010

The centerpiece of any culture, in my tiny little opinion, is its food and its music. The food on this day was amazing. I'm not qualified to attempt a description, but booths were set up with food representing particular countries and cultural variants. I would have a difficult time even saying what I ate, without even beginning to describe it. I know I had mini-tacos which were crunchy and delicious and empanadas from one of the Mexico booths and two other dishes I can't name. One of them involved crisply fried tortillas with cane syrup. Perfect.

But this portion of the blog is about the other pillar of the cultural diad: music (and with it, dance).

The first dancers I stumbled into was an Aztec dance troupe. I remember seeing a similar group when my family traveled to Mexico City and watched a performance there. I'm vague on the memory - I was nine-years-old at the time. One of the things I enjoyed about this performance was watching the dogged determination on the faces of the young dancers to get it right. It was encouraging to see how much they cared.

My favorite musician of the day: Little Drummer Boy - Hola Festival, Knoxville 2010

MaCuba Orchestra

Traditional Cuban music was provided by MaCuba and more contemporary music by local artist Angel Zuniga Martinez.

Children jump about to the music of MaCuba, Hola Festival, Knoxville 2010

In the setting, I found MaCuba pitch perfect, inspiring salsa moves by the adults and old fashioned jumping around from the children. Angel Zuniga Martinez on the other hand is someone I'll explore for my ipod. His music was a little Tex-Mex and a little fuzzy-guitar driven rock and roll. And did you ever see anyone more photogenic? I also learned that he is local.

Angel Zuniga Martinez - Hola Festival - Knoxville 2010

Angel Zuniga Marinez - Hola Festival - Knoxville 2010

Angel Zuniga Martinez - Hola Festival - Knoxville 2010

Hola Festival, Dos

The Farragut High School Band, Hola Festival, Parade of Nations

Representing Latino-Americans at the Hola Festival

The children looked so beautiful and so sincere.

The Parade of Nations opened the festival at 11:00 AM. It would have been very helpful if this was made clear on the website. I knew there was a parade and I wanted to be there, but I had no idea when it would happen. I e-mailed and was referred to the website, so I went at 11:00 suspecting it might be early. It was great fun. An excellent MC who switched comfortably between Spanish and English introduced each of the countries as they paraded. First up was the Farragut High School Marching Band, which as I mentioned in the last post has a Spanish connection.

Urban Baby says, "I've got some snacks in my bag. Let me know when Diego shows up."

Diego!

Afterward, a number of countries paraded past with several people dressed in traditional clothing for that part of the Latin world. Of course, Diego made his initial appearance of the day in the parade. The pictures almost took themselves. Spectacular color and larger than life joy abounded. I hope you like them.

  

Hola Festival Comes to Downtown Knoxville

Cacti on Gay Street pointed to the festival, Knoxville, October 2010

South Entrance and Stage for Hola Festval

Hispanic Heritage Month, celebrated in October, culminated with the Hola Festival held on the 100 block of Gay Street. Music, food, colorful costumes from the various Latin American countries and Spain set the tone for a fun and festive day attended, according to the KPD by ten to twelve thousand people. Special mentions were made of the miners trapped in Chile as well as historical figure and local namesake Admiral Farragut whose father was a Spaniard who fought in the revolutionary war. He has been adopted by the local Latino community as a sort of symbol of Spanish-American pride.

The festival was much to big - it ran from Summit Hill to the viaduct north of the 100 block - and long (from 11AM to 8PM) to be covered in a single blog post. I also want to post as many pictures as possible, so this post will simply cover a few pictures I took as it was getting started. I'll follow with more in subsequent posts.

Gracious Ladies

Precious Girls

To those of you who have become accustomed to nearly daily posts and have noticed that I didn't post for several days, I'll just say that sometimes real life trumps digital life and that's why I haven't posted for three days. I think that's the longest span I've missed since I started. Until I become a full-time blogger (read "never") that will probably happen from time to time. I do promise to simply pick up again and spare you the personal details other bloggers might expect you to suffer through. :-)

I hope you enjoyed the pictures. I hope the joy of the event shines through. More pictures will follow.