Few stages can claim to offer flatfooting, ballet folklórico de México, the fiddle, banjo, zampoñas, charango and mandolin all in the same act. Cornbread & Tortillas is a folk opera that offers all that and more in a whirlwind performance of story, song and dance. Among the foot stomping, skirt twirling and fingerpicking, viewers may not understand the language of every song, but the show these artists put on is the kind you feel in your bones.
Named after the production, Cornbread & Tortillas is a Kentucky-based collective of seven artists from Appalachian and Latin American backgrounds. Since 2016, these artists have come together to perform their signature folk opera as well as educational workshops and assemblies. The folk opera is first and foremost a celebration of the cultural histories of its members, with influences ranging from Appalachia to Nicaragua, Mexico, Greece and Ecuador.
The collective was born out of a desire to collaborate on a project that would foster cultural pride and unity in their Kentucky communities. Kentucky has a sizable immigrant community, accounting for about four percent of the state’s population. Many of these individuals hail from Mexico, Cuba and Guatemala. Around the time that Cornbread & Tortillas began, a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment was gaining momentum following the 2016 presidential election. Recognizing the unease in their communities, the folk collective hoped to serve as a counterpoint to bigotry and fear by exposing viewers to the beauty of Appalachian and Latin American cultures, and their work continues to this day.
Founder and artistic director Carla Gover developed a connection with Spanish-speaking cultures while she was studying the language in college. “I always felt such kinship between the different people I was meeting from Central and South America and how much history and heritage I felt we shared. I didn’t know if it might be an album or a film, but I just thought making art that would allow those cultures to interact on stage would be a beautiful way to show those connections,” she said.
The dream of a cross-cultural project brewed for many years in Carla’s mind, but it took meeting the right people to synthesize the collective. Enter Fernando Moya and Yani Vozos, multi-instrumentalist members of the band Appalatin, which blends Appalachian folk with high-energy Latin beats. Fernando, of Quito, Ecuador, brings a rich knowledge of traditional Andean instruments and music, while Yani’s Appalachian and Greek heritage fused with Latin American culture during a season volunteering with the Peace Corps in Honduras. Rounding out the core of the Cornbread & Tortillas ensemble is Paulina Vasquez, who comes from a long line of Mexican folk dancers and has been dancing, singing and performing since she was a child. This core is joined by Zoey Raven Barrett, Arlo Barnette and Marlon Obando Solano, all of whom contribute their respective gifts for singing, dancing, writing and music.
“Each of us have deep personal connections with the cultures we represent,” said Carla. “This is all stuff that’s in our families and in our heritage that we’ve grown up with, and I think that gives the show a little magic dust, a little special something.”
The folk opera is delivered in both English and Spanish, incorporating traditional songs alongside monologues from the performers that are inspired by their individual lives. The stage is dressed with woven fabric from the Andes alongside quilts, and there is perhaps no better metaphor for the group’s impetus than these crafted textiles. The combination of music, dance and storytelling from various cultural influences creates a performance that is more than the sum of its parts.
“I love that we get to tell our own stories, from our own perspectives, from our own voices.” That’s Paulina, whose monologues in the show are influenced by her experiences as a first generation Mexican-American. “A lot of the time, that creates an opening to conversations after the show where people will come up and say, ‘Oh, that really resonated with me. I felt that my whole life, I just couldn’t quite get it.’ And when you talk and then sing a beautiful traditional song, you’ve touched their heart,” she said.
Audiences may have different points of access to the folk art depicted — perhaps they recognize it from their own background or perhaps this is their first experience of a particular instrument or dance. Regardless, the hope of these artists is that viewers will gain insight to something universal across cultures.
“What is so powerful about putting folk art on stage is when you come from a culture that has been marginalized, there’s kind of a shame that gets thrown at you. You know, you catch hell for your accent, or for being backwards, but the flip side of that is what I see in the faces of people when they hear the banjo or see the dancing. It’s like their hearts are gonna burst with pride,” Carla said. “I’ve seen the same reaction when Paulina comes out in her traditional skirts to do the ballet folklórico.
These reactions continue to encourage the collective, both on and off the stage. In one instance, the collective was having some photos taken, and as Paulina walked across a parking lot in her traditional attire, a car of enthusiastic Mexican women pulled over and called, “¿Donde esta el baile? [Where is the dance?],” ready to join in too. Another time, a group of high school students from Eastern Kentucky met with Fernando, Paulina and Carla in a cultural exchange. As it turns out, these students were also in Spanish class together, and they had the chance to practice language skills as well as music and dance.
Kickstarting cultural curiosity and building connections is exactly what Carla and the group had in mind when Cornbread & Tortillas began. As an Appalachian educator, Carla is passionate about offering insight into the diverse and sometimes obscured backgrounds of the folk art we’re familiar with. This also includes welcoming groups into the conversation, like LGBTQIA+, Black and Indigenous communities, who may not have felt represented by these traditional spheres in the past.
“All of the cultures that we’re dealing with basically have various mixes of European and African and Indigenous influences that just come out in different flavors,” Carla explains. “Some are more heavily influenced by one of those cultures than the other. We definitely reference that in our work, and I think it’s meaningful to people.”
Folk art, like those who preserve and practice it, is inextricable from the context of history and geography. Folklórico, for example, is proof of five centuries of multiple influences on Mexican dance, dress and music, culminating into the diverse styles found throughout each of Mexico’s 31 regions (Paulina is versed in 10 of these styles). Similarly, Appalachian dancing — whether you call it flatfooting, buck dancing or clogging — evolved out of a medley of influences on mountain folk in the 19th century. Cornbread & Tortillas is an opportunity to illuminate these histories together in a personal and engaging form.
“In a short period of time, we are able to show off many features from music, from dancing, from stories — which also is sharing history,” Fernando shared. “That way, the performance brings different attention to different people. Some people ask questions, like ‘What is that kind of instrument? What is that kind of dance?’ And I think that’s a very important part of what we are doing.”
The magic happens when the audience sees something in the show that they recognize within themselves. Yani recounts a recent performance in Burnsville, North Carolina, where they performed the folk opera to a packed crowd of around 400-500 people. “With every show that we do, I feel like it’s our best show, and it just keeps getting better,” he said. “But this recent show, I think that was the most people we’ve ever reached in one venue, and they were getting every joke and really connecting with the stories we were telling. It just felt amazing to have people reacting in a way we could feel, which gives us as performers more motivation and inspiration to perform better. It’s this repeating cycle of energetic exchange.”
This pattern of creation and connection is an undercurrent throughout the entire show. At one point, Paulina, in her traditional folklórico attire, joins Carla, who’s in her flatfooting boots, in a “trading eights” section. Every eight counts, they trade off dancing steps in a high-spirited percussive exchange that builds on improvisation and momentum. “It gives me goosebumps just talking about it,” Yani said. “It’s one of my favorite moments in the show — it’s the dance of creating something new when you’re bringing cultural traditions together.”
Although there are improvisational aspects of the performance, this kind of exchange is built on years of cultivating virtuosity. Each member brings a unique, irreplaceable set of skills and perspective to the collective. “I think there’s a natural blend that occurs when you work with someone for so long,” Paulina added. “We trust each other. We know how the other person performs, what they sound like, and how they are, so it’s just cool to see the authenticity of new sounds and dances come together as we grow in our relationships together.”
The folk opera is an homage to movement — be it movement across a stage in dance, movement in spirit or movement to a new place. “At some point, we’re all immigrants,” Fernando said. “There has always been immigration and movement. By the time you get to a place, you bring where you come from and what you do, either with music, food or art, and you start relating to the people where you’re living now. I think that’s the history of humanity. What Cornbread & Tortillas is doing now is representing human movement, immigration and getting together to create something else.”
So long as there are audiences willing to receive them, Cornbread & Tortillas will continue to bring their colorful, one-of-a-kind celebration to their communities. They’re also excited to see where this path of fusion and collaboration takes them next. But their mission, Carla said, remains the same: “To create a vision of Kentucky, both within and outside the state, that it’s a diverse place, and that’s something we celebrate.”
