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♪Spent my life

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♪ On these mountains

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♪ (Singing fast lyrics) there

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♪ Fed my family

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♪ Now I lay down 
this weary body ♪

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♪ I'm home at last

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♪ Wanna set me free

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>>I grew up in 
the Valley sort of

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feeling a bit like I was 
running across this bridge

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between my English 
language culture

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and my Spanish language culture.

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As I've gotten older, 
I'm not on the bridge.

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I am the bridge.

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(man singing in 
foreign language)

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>>Today we're going to 
visit a musical team

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whose mission is to 
share and celebrate

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the sounds and traditions 
of several cultures

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by combining musical styles 
from different centuries

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and different continents.

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Join us as we talk with Estela 
Knott And Dave Berzonsky

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of Lua Project. Come on.

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(upbeat traditional 
music playing)

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>>So Lua Project has 
been described as

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a cultural pollinator.

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Talk about the different 
styles of music and culture

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that you're combining.

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>>You know, I mean, I 
grew up as this suburban

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kid playing indie rock 
on drums, but when I came

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to college here, I 
met wonderful mentors,

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wonderful musicians, 
but I also learned a lot

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about the sort of belief 
that it really doesn't matter

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who you are, like 
culturally or racially.

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It's like are you 
gonna learn the music?

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Are you gonna put in the time?

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Are you gonna figure 
out how to do stuff?

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>>Are you passionate about it?

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>>And yeah, like and 
so, I grew up in music

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believing if you worked 
hard at stuff and you

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really got inside 
what was going on,

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you could add value, and 
we had for a long time

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been very interested in a 
lot of different kinds of

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global folk music, particularly 
music from Latin America

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and different parts 
of the American South,

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and so what we had been 
exploring in our music

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is learning more and 
more about traditional

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Appalachian music, but also 
different regional musics

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from Mexico, Peru, 
Columbia, Brasil,

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and when we've traveled, 
we've spent a lot of time

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sort of embedded in 
these different cultures

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and really kind of learning 
how they all fit together,

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so at a certain point, 
we decided that we needed

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to sort of stop traveling 
and bring that stuff

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back to the hive, but 
crafted in such a way

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that it is accessible 
to the population

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that we live in amongst.

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And so at that 
point, we came home.

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We built this yert. We 
started a little preschool.

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We really got into learning 
about the traditions

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of Appalachian music, the 
traditions of all our cultures

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and trying to weave that 
together into something we felt

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was uniquely ours.

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>>But it's not just 
about the travel.

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Talk about why this is so 
important to you Estela,

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because this is your childhood.

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>>Well, my mother is from 
Juarez Chihuahua, Mexico,

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and my father grew up 
in Luray, Virginia,

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and so they met when he 
was in the military in

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El Paso, Texas. So, growing 
up, I grew up biracial

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bi cultural and bilingual, 
and always felt very much

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like I could never be 
one fully or the other,

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and as we went 
traveling, we ran across

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the style of music 
called Sonjarocho,

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and when I saw this, 
I was like this is

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what happens in the 
mountains of Virginia.

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>>Give us just a little example,

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so with the clogging 
and Dave playing

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of what that would sound 
like bringing those

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two cultures together.

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>>All right

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>>Just a little sample

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>>Sure. Okay.

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So we're gonna do this 
one called "Guacamaya"

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which in Sonjarocho 
world is in three,

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but we blended it 
with some Appalachian

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clogging styles in 
two, so let's see

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how that goes.

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(clog shoes tapping)

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(guitar playing 
joins shoes tapping)

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(band playing music)

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(Man singing foreign language)

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Umm. ¿Qué es mexilacha?

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Pues esa es la música de México 
con la música de las montañas,

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de las Apalachas.

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Mucha gente abierta del corazón 
para escuchar,

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para escuchar 
las culturas del mundo.

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>>Let's talk about how you 
have extended this into

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a piece that is supported 
by the Virginia Humanities.

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Where you're bringing in 
guest artists and residents

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and you are capturing stories.

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>>When we came back 
to Charlottesville,

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I met a group of Latino women,

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and we started singing 
together with our kids,

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and it turned into just 
this whole idea of like

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how much we miss, like, certain 
aspects of Mexican culture

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living here in Virginia, 
and from that came

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the Cville Sobroso Festival.

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>>And you've been 
recording these interviews.

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>>Yeah, so the way the 
project manifested itself

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is that we went into 
the Shenandoah valley

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and also around 
Charlotesville and interviewed

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a lot of families and 
largely Latino immigrants

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mostly from Mexico, and we 
were collecting their stories.

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We use those as themes and 
then we picked a couple

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traditional Sonjarocho 
pieces, particularly

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in this project. We 
started with a song called

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"Los Poblanas" and "Guacamaya".

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We not only wrote new 
Spanish language verses,

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we also analyzed the 
English ballad tradition

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and found a lot of 
commonalities in the poetic

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and metrical structure, 
and so we wrote

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English language verses 
in the Sonjarocho,

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you know, style, but we 
also wrote Spanish verses

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in the English ballad style.

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>>And it's been so important 
to you Estela to work

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in our community to bring 
these cultures together,

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because there are so many 
rich traditions that people,

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you know, are celebrating 
separately on their own

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here and on their own there,

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and you've been quite a force

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in bringing it all to 
the community as a whole.

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Why is that so important to you?

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>>I love both sides of 
my culture, and I love

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Mexican culture, you 
know, cause we live here

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in Virginia so Virginia 
culture is here.

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But Latino immigrants when 
they come to Virginia,

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there's so much that they 
bring with them culturally.

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(class singing in 
foreign language)

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(clapping)

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Pero tiene otra implicación, 
que puede ser un poco política,

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la implicación 
de hacer sentir

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que nosotros los mejicanos 
llegamos a este país

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trayendo con nosotros 
el trabajo,

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la fuerza diaria, el sudor,

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pero traemos la cultura, 
traemos la música.

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Pero no para ser menos ni más,

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sino para hermanar 
el sentimiento del ser humano,

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desde que somos seres humanos 
de este planeta.

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>>I wrote "Immigration Song" and

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Zenan wrote a beautiful song 
called the "Desierto en Flor"

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and we put them together.

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(man sings in foreign language)

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>>Even though we are 
very focused on coming up

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with sort of a unique 
set of musical ideas,

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(man sings in foreign language)

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we also see ourselves as people

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trying to make sense of the 
multiplicity of cultures

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that reside in all of us, 
and try to create some

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beautiful music about 
that, and try to connect

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through that music.

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>>And you do that in many ways.

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One of the other focuses

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that you all have is 
Blue Ridge Music Together

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where you work with 
families and children.

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Talk just a little 
bit about that.

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>>Well, I mean, that 
all started with

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this idea that we were, 
you know, wow, you know

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here we are. We're 
playing this music,

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but it doesn't seem like 
people are paying attention,

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and we met this

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(laughing)

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>>Wonderful woman

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>>I'm sure you have no 
idea what that feels like.

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(laughing)

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>>No idea

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>>You know we met 
this wonderful woman,

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and we started talking to her 
about how we really missed

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certain aspects of Latin 
culture because everybody's

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singing and moving and 
dancing, and, you know,

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and she was like, 
"You know what?

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We can complain about it, 
or we can do something

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about it, and I want you 
to come and check out

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these classes that I teach."

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And it was Music 
Together classes,

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and so we went and 
we checked it out and

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it's like this circle 
of like adults who are

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modeling musical behavior 
for their children,

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and we looked across 
the circle at each other

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and we're like this is 
the answer to helping

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cure this issue with our 
culture, and we've got

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to do this, and so 
that's what we do.

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We sing with the adults and 
we create musical environments

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for the children, like 
every week we do that

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and we love it. It's wonderful.

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>>This is the life 
that you all live,

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entrenched in this 
culture and these ideas

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and these beliefs.

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Talk about why that 
was so important to you

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and continues to be, because 
it's not always easy.

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>>As Estela and I moved 
closer and closer in

200
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our relationship 
and our marriage,

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we decided that we 
really wanted to

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start to look inside our 
own culture traditions

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and try to bring 
those to the fore.

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So we're now working 
with our children, right

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to invent sort of 
Mexilachian dishes.

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You know, so we're 
saying like, "Okay,

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what are the elements 
that bring together

208
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Appalachia and Mexico 
in cuisine." Right?

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And so it's like corn, 
beans, pork, right?

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There's a barbecue 
tradition in Mexico

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that's different, and so 
we're developing dishes

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where we blend those 
things together

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like we could do a carnitas, 
but like a smoked carnitas,

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you know but using a 
blend of the spices

215
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that you use in the 
American South and in Mexico

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00:10:03,333 --> 00:10:04,800
Things like that. It's 
like when you first start

217
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a stew or a soup, like 
there's not much flavor

218
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to it yet and you kinda 
gotta sit with it.

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And it's gotta simmer for 
a long period of time.

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You know we've been working 
on this set of cultural

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ideas for 15, 20 years.

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The idea of this Mexilachian 
thing is quite new,

223
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only last couple years, right?

224
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But moving forward, 
you know, our children

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participate in this idea, 
so they're cooking with us.

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You know, they're 
coming on stage with us

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and playing percussion 
or starting to sing 
the songs around

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the house, and so-

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>>Yeah and this-

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>>You know, my whole 
thing was that when I get

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old, when I pass on, I 
want to leave my children

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two things, a cookbook and 
a songbook for them to have.

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>>Aw.

234
00:10:45,333 --> 00:10:49,733
>>Yeah and this has really 
become, like, very real for us

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most recently over the 
past year and a half

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because we hear our 
children singing the songs

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that we are writing.

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We hear them humming the 
melodies, and for me, like

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00:11:04,566 --> 00:11:08,533
I've never really cared about, 
like, becoming famous, like

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for me what's the most 
important thing is that

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00:11:12,500 --> 00:11:16,200
what we're doing becomes 
a part of history,

242
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Virginia's history and 
that my children can

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00:11:18,766 --> 00:11:21,100
pass it down to their children.

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>>That's fantastic. 
Thanks you guys.

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This is great work.

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sino fue como un sueño.

247
00:11:25,900 --> 00:11:30,500
Fue es una, una imaginación 
de poder hacer este proyecto,

248
00:11:30,533 --> 00:11:35,200
de acercar estas músicas 
que tienen baile,

249
00:11:35,233 --> 00:11:38,133
que tienen música, 
que tienen canto,

250
00:11:38,166 --> 00:11:42,333
que tienen vida comunitaria, 
vida en la tierra.

251
00:11:42,366 --> 00:11:44,066
Es 
o es importante.

252
00:11:44,266 --> 00:11:45,700
(music playing)

253
00:11:45,700 --> 00:11:47,366
♪oh yeah

254
00:11:47,366 --> 00:11:49,600
♪ She served it up 
with black-eyed peas ♪

255
00:11:49,600 --> 00:11:53,466
♪ With Daddy's 
gravy on the side ♪

256
00:11:53,466 --> 00:11:54,433
♪ Over a biscuit

257
00:11:54,433 --> 00:11:58,100
(singing in foreign language)