In new footprint, Tucson Meet Yourself is about more than food

That’s the intention, organizers say.

This year’s 53rd annual Tucson Meet Yourself Oct. 16-18 is getting a redo courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution and the event’s lead architect, Bryan Rafael Falcón.

“He brought that vision of let’s create villages,” said Maribel Alvarez, who became a senior advisor this year after directing the festival since 2010. “Let's create spaces where people can linger and feel that they are entering a neighborhood. Let's be whimsical about that.

"Let's call one of those neighborhoods ‘Fry Town,’ and let's put together a bunch of people who fry foods there. Let's put the U of A groups that do all their fundraising in one place and let's call it ‘Wildcat Court.’ Let's remove the stage that was always in the center of Jácome and let's open the greens and call it the ‘Gathering Greens’.”

“Our whole goal this year was to help people slow down and go deeper,” Falcón said.

That redesign was made possible by the $250,000 the festival received as part of the Smithsonian’s nationwide “Of the People: The Smithsonian Festival of Festivals.”

The Smithsonian established the initiative to mark the United States' 250th birthday in a way that allows the country to celebrate its “successes, contemplate our history, commemorate the sacrifices of those who have worked to uphold the nation’s ideals and ask Americans to commit to advancing our democracy and preserving our shared future.”

In addition to adding some attractions, Tucson Meet Yourself organizers created more opportunities for visitors to have meaningful encounters in redesigned spaces and themed villages, including the “Of the People Neighborhood.”

That’s where you’ll be invited into conversations and demonstrations with artists, cooks, musicians and “tradition bearers.”

The festival’s redesigned footprint is a way to encourage visitors to slow down and take in more than the food that has long been the calling card of Tucson Meet Yourself.

“We wanted to … give (people) a reason to slow down and to be thinking about those things that we celebrate," Falcón said. “There are 12 different spaces (that) encapsulate these little micro communities or neighborhoods in the festival, and each one has food and each one has activities, each one has a gravitational center.”

It’s in those gravitational centers — a stage, an open space — where conversations take place.

Let's go on a scavenger hunt

You can start the conversation by participating in the TMY scavenger hunt to find the landmarks in the 10 villages. Here’s a hint:

• TMY Plaza: Look for “The TMY Letters” somewhere in this colorful gathering spot where you’ll find the info tent, a booth to buy your Taste of the Festival Passports, and the Festival Store.

• Of the People Village: With folks from the Smithsonian Folklife Festival held on the National Mall each summer, blacksmiths and glassblowers will be demonstrating their crafts. Look for the “Faces of the Festival” gallery wall.

• Home Cooks Corridor: This is where your neighbors will share family recipes handed down for generations. Look for the Home Cooks Story Boards.

• Culture Kitchen Lane: Home of the new Culture Kitchen pavilion set up in a 1930s-style metal diner. Look for the diner window and take a picture through it.

• Native Nations Way: This is the gathering spot for artisans from around the world. Look for and kick around the giant Orbs.

• Homelife Park: This busy marketplace is where you’ll find booths with food, art and local business vendors going through the machinations of everyday life. You’ll want to look for the “You Belong In Tucson” neon sign.

• Global Artists Triangle: On the Masters of Living Traditions stage, you’ll find artist demonstrations including artists from Kazakhstan. Look for the Coyote wall.

• Frytown & Wildcat Court: This is one of those “follow your nose” kind of destinations. Look for the Frytown sign.

• Barrio Commons: With its array of international food offerings, music and dance, this village is sure to be one of the most popular throughout the weekend. When you stop in, look for the Stone Stage.

• Big Jim Square: This is where you’ll find the Church Stage and hear music that the festival’s founder James “Big Jim” Griffith adored, including local legend Ted Warmbrand, who will be the first to perform on the stage at 11 a.m. Friday. Look for the “Come for the Culture” neon sign.

• The Crossroads: This is the center of the festival grounds, a perfect place to meet up with friends or to meet back if your group gets separated. Look for the “Crossroads” sign.

Let’s sing and dance

More than 500 artists and musicians will perform on the festival’s five main stages, three of them devoted to music and dance.

• The Stone Stage in Barrio Commons, supported by the University of Arizona, is where you’ll find international folk music spanning Irish and Chinese to Brazilian Bosa Nova and Kazakh ethno-folk; and dance from Mexican folklorico to belly dancing and line dancing.

On Friday night, Jaliya — World Contemporary Music, the West African music duo of Elijah Ndoye and Yacouba Traore, will perform at 9 p.m. Saturday’s headliner at 8:30 p.m. is Yaqui classical guitarist Gabriel Ayala.

• Gathering Green, just north of Pennington, which is sponsored by Southwest Folklife Alliance, is where you’ll find international and native dance traditions demonstrated and discussed, including the Yoeme/Yaqui Ritual Deer Dance and the Aztec Chichimeca Dance beginning at 4 p.m. Saturday. Japanese Obon and Indian Bollywood take the spotlight Saturday.

University of Arizona cheerleaders and Wildcats mascots Wilbur and Wilma kick things off at noon Friday.

• Church Stage on Big Jim Square, sponsored by Rio Nuevo, deep dives into the roots of folk music and traditions from American bluegrass and Tohono O’odham Waila music to Scandinavian and Moroccan.

Headliners include the waila band Gertie and the T.O. Boyz at 8:45 p.m. Friday; African roots reggae singer General Tchefary at 8:30 p.m. Saturday; and the tejano big band Suerteaz at 5 p.m. Sunday.

Let’s talk

Culture and folklife traditions will live on the Smithsonian Folklife Festival’s Folklife Here Stage in the Of the People Village. This is where Tucson Meet Yourself at noon Saturday will introduce the interns from Tucson and University high schools who worked with the festival and the Smithsonian to research historical occupations.

Tucson interdisciplinary artist and zine maker Ames Meeks, who led the local “We Hold These Truths” initiative, will discuss the effort during “Zines as Truth Telling” at 5 p.m. Saturday. The Smithsonian asked TMY and other festivals that are part of the Washington, D.C. organization’s folk festival initiative to create a traveling kiosk inviting community members to reflect on the beliefs and values that they hold to be true.

Also on the Folklife Here Stage:

• Scoundrel and Scamp Theatre, which festival director Falcón founded with his wife, Elizabeth, in 2016, will perform “War of the Worlds” at 7:30 p.m. Friday with an encore performance at 4:30 p.m. Sunday. Friday’s lineup also includes discussions on the Tucson City of Gastronomy and stories of the Santa Cruz River.

• The Border Chronicle and Tucson Sentinel will discuss reporting on the border at 2 p.m. Saturday. At 3, learn how builders are turning bufflegrass into homes.

• On Sunday, Disability Cultures is presenting “Comedy and Poetic Nature” with Scott Other and Naomi Ortiz at 1 p.m. Saguaro National Park and Friends will have a conversation at 2 p.m. about accessibility to the outdoors.

Let’s cook

The Culture Kitchen on Culture Kitchen Lane, presented by Tucson Appliance, is taking on all sorts of topics related to our favorite topic: Food.

• Horticulturists Foz Chavez and Jacob Robles lead the discussion about chilaquiles to kick things off at 11 a.m. Friday. Other topics include Chinese tamales and albondigas.

• The UA School Garden Workshop will share a school recipe at noon Saturday, followed at 1 by the Tucson Family Food Project, which will share its broccoli mac and cheese recipe. Saturday’s lineup also includes a session on foraged mocktails and ice cream, shio koji chicken with blue corn polenta, and a conversation on Tucson heirloom recipes.

• Tucson chef Alejandre Richards will whip up a rich Cassava pone dessert at 1:30 p.m. Sunday. It’s one of the dishes Chef Richards makes as part of her Tie Kitchen dining experience. Sunday’s lineup also includes a discussion at noon on the rare Japanese Matsutake mushroom that’s widely foraged along America’s northwest coast.

Let’s eat

Even with all of the changes taking place at this year’s Tucson Meet Yourself, food is on the minds of organizers and attendees alike.

“Of course people are going to come in, and I hope they come with their mouths watering, hungry to be able to taste all these different places,” said Falcón.

Fifty different food vendors will be preparing every imaginable genre of food, representing Tucson’s diverse culinary fabric.

And to make it affordable, the festival is once again offering its Taste of the Festival passport: $30 in advance ($35 at the festival store during the event) gets you five food vouchers for small plates from 15 participating vendors, including Boriken Modern Puerto Rican Cuisine, O’odham Ladies, San Xavier Cooperative Farm and Wat Buddhametta.

The vendors are largely minority-owned businesses, cultural organizations and cooks from economically vulnerable communities that benefit from more than $1 million in revenues raised over the three-day festival, according to organizers.

Whatever you’re craving, Tucson Meet Yourself is sure to have it.

Looking for something full of delicious Middle Eastern flavors?

• Try Muna Food, a Palestinian booth serving up beef arayes, a smash burger on a flour or corn tortilla with a special yogurt sauce.

• The Sema Foundation will have gyro sandwiches and kababs, and Elif’s Kitchen Kumpir and Gozleme will bring their specialty kumpir, gozleme and baklava to the table.

Want to take a flavorful tour of Latin American cuisine?

• Tucson Meet Yourself will feature it all from Cuba to El Salvador from vendors including Patricia’s Cuban Kitchen, Pupuseria Rosita’s and Empanadas El Dominicano.

Then there’s ….

• You’ll want to get in line early at Herculean Chicken for the stand’s fan-favorite signature fried chicken breast cutlet served in a paper sack. They also serve up Taiwanese-style fried chicken that’s easy to eat on the go.

• You can get Jamaican oxtail and jerk chicken at Pam’s Kitchen, king oyster mushroom dumplings from Huhu’s House of Dumplings, the Palestinian national dish Msukhan from Muna Food, and eggplant biryani and aloo gobi from the Pakistani food vendor and festival newcomer Nohpalli.

Make sure to leave some room for dessert. A number of venues specialize in sweet treats, including Purple Devil Donuts, the festival go-to for classic American cake doughnuts; Planet of the Crepes, which has a seriously craveable strawberry Nutella crepe; and refreshing smoothies from Purple Tree Truck.

For a full list of food vendors, visit tucsonmeetyourself.org/food.