Luray, Virginia
The Blue Ridge Montañitas Festival is a first-of-its-kind music festival, a vibrant celebration of music, culture, and community set against the backdrop of the breathtaking mountainous views of Luray, in the heart of Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. The festival is scheduled to take place September 28, 2024, from 11 am – 7 pm, and will bring together a dynamic lineup of musicians and dancers, along with educational programming, for an unforgettable experience that highlights the unique spirit of the Latine and Appalachian community.
The festival is part of the larger Montañitas Reimagined project, a collaboration between Estela Diaz Knott from the Lua Project, the Luray Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 621, and Dr. Amy Price-Azano, Director of the Virginia Tech Center for Rural Education, to reimagine Appalachia as a shared and co-created space with, by, and alongside Latine communities. In addition to the festival, the project – funded by Monuments Across Appalachian Virginia (a Mellon Foundation sponsored grant project) – will create an interdisciplinary place-based community curriculum and a digital album so that a more nuanced and complex story of the region can be shared locally, regionally, and beyond.
The Blue Ridge Montañitas Festival aims to create a harmonious blend of Latin American and Appalachian expression, inspired by the lived experiences of Montañitas co-founders Knott and Price-Azano who grew up together in Luray and shared a vision for a festival and monument that would showcase the rich tapestry of cultural influences in this region of Appalachia. “People often think of rural communities, especially in Appalachia, as white, monolingual, monolithic spaces when, in reality, they are wonderfully diverse,” said Price-Azano. “We areexcited to share the culture, language, music, food, art, and dance from Appalachians with Latine heritage who make up the core and fabric of the Shenandoah Valley.”
The festival will take place at the VFW Comer-Jones Post 621 in Luray, where a core group of veterans and auxiliary members have been instrumental as community partners in planning the event. The festival co-founders have deep ties to the VFW. Price-Azano recalls fond memoriesof her childhood, growing up and playing on the grounds of the VFW where her father, a veteran and officer at the Post, would go and volunteer his time. And for Knott, the VFW post is the spot where over 40 years ago, her mother Lupe, who was the first permanent Mexican resident of Luray, hosted Fiestas to share her Mexican culture— the food, music, and dance, with the local community.
“When I was growing up, my mother did everything she could to engage our community in learning about and participating in the joyous traditions of Mexican culture. As more Latin American people began to settle in the Valley, my mother became the go-to person, serving as the town’s local interpreter, and she has done that for over 50 years,” explained Knott. “The Fiestas at the VFW are one of my fondest memories of being a kid so with the Blue Ridge Montañitas Festival, we are renewing that gesture but with stories, songs, and foodways from the whole Shenandoah Valley, and from the richer, more complex “Appalachiano” community that lives here today.”
Lupe Knott is very excited that her family and local community are re-kindling the festival she started so many years ago. As she says, “I am just flabbergasted that Amy, who was one of the first kids who participated in the community fiestas, when she and Estela were in elementary school, was so moved by her experiences that she connected with Estela to work on reviving the fiesta and making it a part of a school curriculum. With all my years teaching about Mexican culture, I just never imagined that the kids would care so much about it that they would want to do something this special.” Knott and Price-Azano agree that education is a key component of this work. As Lupe explains, “You just never know when you’re teaching kids, what they will absorb. It’s beautiful to me to know how sharing my culture with kids like Amy, who grew up with European Appalachian roots, has impacted them. My community is going to really enjoy it. There are many more Latino people here now and they are really going to enjoy it!”
Attendees can expect a carefully curated selection of performances with energetic traditional dances from the Shenandoah Valley Cloggers and Villa Sabrosa Dance troupe; various musical genres, including old time, Norteño, Ranchera, Son Jarocho, latin Popular music and Country.
The festival will include Lua Project’s signature Mexilachian music, which features a beguilingblend of instrumental and vocal timbres, including the banjo and fiddle of traditional Appalachian fiddle music, with the jarana and requinto of Veracruz, layered with accordion, zapateado, and South American percussion sounds. In addition to the musical performances, the festival will feature a variety of cultural, artistic, and food-oriented workshops. There will be a Mexican art workshop hosted by the talented Mexican-American artist Marissa Kalo, a side-by-side demonstration of tamales, presented by Maria Peralta, along with traditional biscuits and gravy, taught by Sue Price, who is Azano’s mother.
Participants will be able to taste the delicious results. There will also be a panel discussion of veterans, sharing their experiences, and two dance workshops, one of traditional Appalachian clogging, led by Deloris Judy, and a ballet folkloric workshop, led by Stephanie Castro.
The festival entry and parking are free, and all are encouraged to attend. For more information, follow the Montañitas Reimagined project on Instagram at @montanitasproject and Facebook to learn more about the musicians, artists, activities, and other exciting announcements leading up to the festival.
About MAAV
Monuments Across Appalachian Virginia is based in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences at Virginia Tech and is part of a $250 million initiative funded by the Mellon Foundation. The Mellon Foundation’s Monuments Project began in 2020 to support public projects that reimagine commemorative spaces and transform the way history is told in the United States. MAAV is led by Dr. Emily Satterwhite of Virginia Tech’s Appalachian Studies Program and Dr. Katrina Powell of Virginia Tech’s Center for Refugee, Migrant, and Displacement Studies.
MAAV is proud to enable, support, and reward meaningful and extensive university-community collaborations. Through these collaborations, MAAV works to ensure greater participation in decision-making and governance by community partners. They are committed to collective, reflexive, and reciprocal working relationships through which new projects develop in coordination with organizations, constituents, stakeholders, and designers. Montañitas Reimagined is one of nine MAAV Projects. To learn more about those projects please visit www.moremountainstories.org.
