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| 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.
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| My favorite musician of the day: Little Drummer Boy – Hola Festival, Knoxville 2010 |
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| MaCuba Orchestra |
Traditional Cuban music was provided by MaCuba and more contemporary music by local artist Angel Zuniga Martinez.
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| 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.
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| Angel Zuniga Martinez – Hola Festival – Knoxville 2010 |
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| Angel Zuniga Marinez – Hola Festival – Knoxville 2010 |
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| Angel Zuniga Martinez – Hola Festival – Knoxville 2010 |
