The sights and sounds of countries from Central and South America will permeate Park City during the 2022 Latino Arts Festival.

Events will run from Monday to Sunday, June 20-26, at various venues throughout the town, said

Andrea Zavala, community inclusion and outreach coordinator of the Arts Council of Park City and Summit County. (See accompanying schedule).

“We will have artists and performers from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Guatemala, Mexico, Puerto Rico and Venezuela,” she said. “I’m working to get a group from Ecuador. So, we’ll see.”

In addition, the Latino Arts Festival has partnered with other local nonprofits and organizations to give people opportunities to pick and choose which activities they want to attend, according to Jocelyn Scudder, the Arts Council’s executive director.

Some of those events include a free screening of “Selena,” Gregory Nava’s 2017 biopic of the late Tejano idol, through Park City Film, a string of Latinx short films with the Sundance Institute, live music and performances made possible by Mountain Town Music, art exhibits and sales with the Arts Council and Park Silly Sunday Market and Cena en el Jardin (Dinner in the Garden) at Summit Community Gardens featuring Ramires Mexican Food and Poetry with Artes de México, Scudder said.

The idea to spread out these activities came from necessity during the 2021 Latino Arts Festival, which was presented after the COVID-19 shutdown in 2020, she said.

“We wanted to do something, but not gather 2,000 people at once in one place,” Scudder said. “So we came up with this ‘dispersed model’ where we broke out multiple events over multiple days and worked out a new production style that integrated the festival with exhibiting events and partners.”

In addition to introducing Latinx artists and musicians to the public, the Latino Arts Festival also highlights the similarities and differences of the participating countries, Zavala said.

“Even though we’re Latino, we’re all so very different,” she said. “Our foods are different. The way we talk is different. And the dances we do are different.”

Honest representation is important not only to show the public these differences but also to empower those whose countries are showcased, Zavala said.

“When I first came to Park City 18 years ago, I would tell people who asked that I was from Ecuador, and some of them didn’t know where Ecuador was,” she said. “All they knew is that I spoke Spanish and was from South America. So, seeing your country being represented during a festival that takes place in a city you have been living in for 18 years is something that can be very emotional. And we want to do that for everyone from these countries who live here. We want them to feel proud and see their cultures here.”

The Latino Arts Festival started six years ago with Maximo Ventura, who served as the Christian Center of Park City’s Latino outreach coordinator, Zavala said.

“He wanted to show all of Park City our culture and did that with an art exhibit and live music and dance at the Christian Center,” she said.

Because of its success, the festival partnered with the Arts Council and moved to the Park City Library in 2017 where it continued through 2019.

The festival’s “dispersed model” of 2021, proved to be successful, Scudder said.

“It gave people a chance to choose the events that they had time for,” she said. “Our intent is to give these artists as much exposure as we can so people who can’t be at every single event can feel they can experience the festival in more manageable ways while they shuttle their kids from one summer camp to another.”