Birmingham Museum of Art | Southern Señora

NOTE: Fiesta Fridays is a special series to highlight the many memories I have of Fiesta through the photographs I’ve taken since 2003.

The Blue Demon Luchador makes his first appearance at Fiesta in 2007!

Fiesta 2007 brought several new additions to the event. It was our 5th anniversary so everyone involved was so excited that we had made it this far! It also turned out to be one of our biggest years ever with over 20K people attending! I was board president that year and the board members and volunteers seemed to be settling into a great rhythm with the planning and engaging both the English and Spanish-speaking communities. This was also the year we went out on a “so-called” limb and decided the time was right for wrestling!!!

Our presenting sponsor – Coca Cola – had just launched a new energy drink called Full Throttle Blue Demon and had acquired Mexican luchador (wrestler) Blue Demon, Jr. to help with promotions in Mexico. The board was having a meeting several months before our 2007 Fiesta event when we started discussing new aspects of our event. Lucha Libre was mentioned and board member, Mike Suco (with Coca Cola) brought up Blue Demon. Things took off quickly from there and before you knew it, we had Blue Demon making a weekend appearance in Alabama and we had also partnered with Wrestle Birmingham to bring a ring and local wrestlers to Fiesta! The ring was set up right next to the Coca Cola Main Stage and the crowd that gathered was incredible! I remember standing on the main stage and getting some pretty awesome photos of the wrestling matches! The crowd that gathered that year was incredible!

The Blue Demon and Wrestle Birmingham

Mike Suco, of Coca Cola Bottling and Fiesta Board Member escorts Blue Demon around Fiesta in 2007

Blue Demon made a return appearance in 2008 to huge crowds. He was definitely popular! The current Fiesta board is looking at bringing wrestling or Lucha Libre, back to Fiesta for our 15th anniversary celebration. Fingers crossed it works out! I would love to see all that excitement once again at our event!

Antonio Sacre, storyteller, performer and author, makes his first appearance at Fiesta in 2007 in the Storytelling Village.

Fiesta also created a new village in 2007 – the Storytelling Village. We were lucky enough to find Antonio Sacre, a storyteller, performer and author of Irish-Cuban descent to highlight the village. And let me tell you, he not only highlighted the Storytelling Village…he ended up highlighting the entire festival!!! He didn’t just stay in one part of Linn Park that day! He was all over the place, finding opportunities to tell stories in the cultural village, on the main stage and just lend his all around good nature and great stories to the delight of the many guests that day at Fiesta! No group was too small or too large for Antonio!

The Storytelling Village itself was such a great set up…we had beanbag chairs for kids to relax in and hear stories read to them by UAB college students. The Birmingham Public Library also partnered with us to make this village come alive. Bilingual books were donated so kids got to read, hear the books read, and then go home with one to enjoy! Families flocked to the new village that year and seemed to really enjoy the peace and quiet offered there…away from the activity of the other areas of Fiesta but close enough to still see what was going on.

Antonio Sacre performs on the Coca Cola Main Stage

Photo opp with Antonio in the Storytelling Village

Storytelling Village set up for Antonio’s performances

Antonio performs in the Storytelling Village

Antonio Sacre made a return visit to Fiesta in 2008 and this time he came for the entire weekend. We arranged for him to visit several schools on Friday and he became quite the ambassador for Fiesta that year! I know we saw an increase in family attendance from the schools visited. I was fortunate enough to chauffeur him around that day. And on Friday night we had a reception at the Birmingham Public Library where we heard from Antonio, had a book signing and we also hosted several Fiesta scholarship winners. Our local CBS news affiliate even came out to cover the event!

Welcome banner at Central Park School! The kids had all read Antonio’s book – The Barking Mouse!

Antonio poses with some of the kids at Central Park School

Antonio performs at Glen Iris school

Book signing at Birmingham Public Library. Antonio poses with my friend Lisa Rios and her daughter

I have one more great memory of Antonio and the 2008 year and it is unrelated to the Fiesta event… There was a Leonardo DaVinci exhibit at the Birmingham Museum of Art that fall. The BMA had been a partner with Fiesta for many years so I had some tickets to the exhibit. We had some time before the first school visit and I asked Antonio if he wanted to go. He said “sure!” It turned out to be such a fun few hours walking around the museum with him and listening to his thoughts on the DaVinci’s drawings and other artifacts. It was such a treat for me to hear Antonio’s impressions through an artists’ mind.

More to come so please come back every Friday through September 30, 2017 for more behind the scenes stories of Fiesta!

This is the first of a three-part post about the Birmingham Chinese Festival Association and the annual Chinese New Year Festival.

Red Chinese lanterns lined the trees in Linn Park the first year of the festival.

The Magic City is filled with so many fun things to do! Some weekends, its hard to decide which way to turn with so many options! This past Saturday, I chose the 9th Annual Chinese New Year Festival at Boutwell Auditorium. Of course, I’m a little partial to this event since I around when it was born in 2006.

Before the festival was officially formed, many of the Chinese groups and organizations around town would celebrate Chinese New Year with smaller events. Even the Birmingham Museum of Art held a family event at one time. The year 2005 was a turning point though, and a concerted effort grew among the community to create one large event – a festival – to celebrate Chinese history and culture. This became a collaboration between the Birmingham Chinese Association (BCA), the Birmingham Public Library, the Birmingham Museum of Art and several other Chinese cultural groups. So, 2005 was the year the Birmingham Chinese Festival Association was born and they began planning their first Chinese New Year Festival in Linn Park.

Amy Chen of the BCFA served as Mistress of Ceremonies for the Chinese costume fashion show in the Birmingham Museum of Art. Here she entertains the guests with a favorite Chinese song.

Around this time, I met Amy Chen – a dynamo of a woman with a heart so full of a love of her Chinese culture you couldn’t help but smile every time she spoke to you about it! I always loved talking to Amy. Sometimes she would get so wrapped up in her stories she would tear up. Naturally, that would make me tear up too! She had been to my Fiesta event and loved what we were doing with our Hispanic cultural festival and wanted their Chinese festival to be a success just like ours. Amy asked me to come to some of the early organizing meetings where I shared what we did with Fiesta, how we organized, the types of sponsorships we looked for and how we mobilized volunteers to share their culture. Honestly, they had it all together already, but it was nice of Amy to ask me and for the organizing committee to listen to me. I helped Amy with sponsorship referrals that year and again a few years later when she became President of the BCFA. It’s hard to say “no” to Amy – and really, I didn’t want to because I know the work it takes to deliver a festival based on sponsorships and volunteers. It really was a joy to help her.

The Dragon is always a symbol of the Chinese New Year Festival.

So the first event in Linn Park was February 2007. It really was exciting and you could feel the excitement building as tables were set up by vendors and organizations around the fountain in Linn Park. The smell of Chinese food began drifting through the air from the gazebo in the park and I couldn’t wait to grab a plate and dig in! The opening ceremonies featured a ribbon cutting and fireworks along with the Dragon Dance through the park. Across the street at the museum, Amy was busy at work getting a fashion show ready with modern and traditional dress. In between costume changes, she arranged for music performances and even sang a song herself to the audience!

The models pose at the end of the Chinese fashion show. Some wore modern clothing and some wore traditional clothing. All were so colorful!

The festival drew about 4,000 people to downtown Birmingham on a sunny, cold February day, and much like Fiesta, it was more than was anticipated for a first time event and definitely enough to call it a success and began planning for the next year.

Part 2 – The festival steps up and moves into Boutwell Auditorium along with entertainment straight from China!

Photo opp with Curtis Pickens of AT&T, my friend, Peggy Burnett of the APC Foundation and Amy Chen at the sight of the ribbon cutting. Amy insisted we be a part of the ceremony!

The crowds were drawn to the many vendors at the festival. I saw many red lanterns walking away from the park, including one in my hand!

My friend, Peggy, learns how to use the Kau Cim Fortune Telling Sticks. First, you shake the cylinder so that the sticks pop out and then you select the tallest one. Finally, you read the number on the stick and look up your fortune in a book. Not as easy as it may sound but we enjoyed experimenting!