Inaugural Summer Festival in Punta Cana – July 25-27
When I hear people speak of traveling to the Dominican Republic, Punta Cana almost always comes up as the most frequently chosen destination for a splendid beach vacation. But, as with any country, there are so many more unadvertised aspects to be explored in the Dominican Republic. Mainly as a reaction to the ubiquitously promoted beach allure of her native country, event creator and producer Laura Féliz has created a special immersive festival called A Lo Quisqueya Fest that will take place from July 25th to the 27th in Punta Cana’s Caribbean Lake Park. Offering experiential nuggets of Dominican culture, history, gastronomy, music, and much more, the festival is designed to acquaint tourists with various enticing facets of the Dominican Republic, without the need to leave Punta Cana. Laura tells us about this exciting first-time festival in her native country.
Laura Féliz, creator and producer of the festival A Lo Quisqueya Fest
What does the festival name mean?
Quisqueya reflects the original name of the Dominican Republic, the name that the natives gave the island; it means “mountain land.” Some people still use this name, but it’s not as common as Dominican Republic. “A lo” is a very Dominican expression, so I wanted to combine the name of the festival with Dominican style.
Usually, when tourists think of going to the Dominican Republic—or DR as I often hear it called—the first images that come to mind are of the beautiful beaches. Many wouldn’t necessarily think of mountains.
Actually, this is the island with the highest peak in the entire Caribbean! [Pico Duarte at 10,127 feet]. It’s true, people think that the Dominican Republic is mainly about the beaches, which are wonderful, but we are more than that. This is one of the main reasons that I decided to create this festival: to show not only to the tourists but also to create this consciousness of ourselves that we offer more than beaches in our different regions. If you take a look at the logo of the festival by itself, it has the symbols that represent iconic places in the Dominican Republic. There is the statue of Montesinos [Spanish Dominican friar Antonio de Montesinos, a 16th-century missionary who was the first European to publicly denounce the enslavement and harsh treatment of the indigenous peoples on the island]. Then you have Puerto Plata represented by the Glorieta—the iconic gazebo—image, the big clocktower of Monte Cristi in the north, the image of La Basílica de Higüey in La Altagracia province where Punta Cana is, and the pictography of the Tainos—the natives—representing the south of the island. So, I wanted to create a space to also show culture, gastronomy, everything.
A Lo Quisqueya Fest poster
How did you come up with the inspiration for this?
I was contacted by Caribbean Lake Park in downtown Punta Cana because they wanted to create a festival. We initially started with a Christmas festival, but we couldn’t have done it this past December. So, they proposed to me to create another festival during the year and then my brain started like working like crazy; I wanted something that would make an impact. As a Dominican living in Spain now, one thing that I have identified is that a lot of people have been to Punta Cana and only had the all-inclusive experience there, nothing else. That’s kind of heartbreaking because we have so much more to offer, so many more regions. So, I want this festival to bring the tourists out of the resorts. I want them to experience much more this weekend in July, and they don’t even have to leave Punta Cana.
Design for a Galeria – focused on Amber and the Larimar stone
What can people expect during these three days?
We have designed the festival as a series of experiences. Each experience will take place in a “galeria”—this means “porch,” like the porches in American houses. In the Dominican Republic, our grandparents’ typical houses have these porches we call galerias. Imagine that you are walking in a typical Dominican neighborhood, on a street and then you have these houses with galerias and in each galeria, you’re going to have a different experience: involving chocolate, rum, tobacco, also Larimar and amber which are stones from the Dominican Republic; actually the Larimar stone can only be found in the Dominican Republic. We’ll also have a galeria for mixology and one for Taino yoga—native yoga. These galerias are not displays; they’re interactive. We call them experiences because there’s storytelling in each galeria, with characters who welcome the people and tell the history, and everyone will have the opportunity to taste, to smell, even to get creative. For example, in the mixology galeria, there’s a typical drink we have, called Mamajuana, that is said to be good for love, and you’ll have the opportunity to create your own love potion. The galerias have several sessions during the day and a capacity of 35 people at a time. But every 25 minutes they start another session. Those who have tickets will be able to reserve their space in a galeria through a QR code available at each experience station or in other places throughout the festival area.
We’ll also have live music with a performance that will show the Dominican Republic history through dance. The dancers will also be teaching classes for the visitors in bachata or merengue or other dances. We’ll have some fun, typical Dominican characters walking around, like the woman in hair rollers, and more. There will also be a food truck area with the particularity that each food truck has to adapt any meal to a Dominican meal. Then there will be a contest judged by María Marte, the only Dominican chef who has two Michelin stars. She’ll select the winner and give a prize. We’re also going to have a bazaar inside the festival area. We believe that it’s important to give the opportunity to the small business owners to participate and offer special pieces.
Do you have the option of one ticket for all three days or is it a ticket per day?
We have only tickets for each day, not for the three days, because we think that many of the people attending will come from the all-inclusive hotels, and they want to enjoy what they already paid for there. What is important is that the daily ticket will allow you, for example, to come in the morning then leave and spend the afternoon on the beach, and return in the evening.
What do you hope that tourists will take away from this experience?
I would love that people go back home feeling a part of the Dominican culture, that they enjoyed how we are, how we treat people, and our best products, like coffee, tobacco, chocolate, rum—really nice products, most of them organic. I want people to have a lot of fun. One of my main objectives is for this not to feel like a museum. It’s also family friendly; they can bring kids. Even for something like the tobacco galeria, the kids can see the tobacco process—how they dry the leaves and roll them—but they won’t be exposed to smoke. If adults want to enjoy a smoke, there is a separate area for that. In the mixology galeria, we’ll also offer a popular non-alcoholic drink for kids, called Mabi, so they can enjoy this experience too.
All the experiences are designed for the whole family and all of them are inclusive, which means the narration will be reproduced in sign language. We’ll also have wheelchair access. And there will be sessions of the experiences in English as well, for those who do not speak Spanish. So come to Punta Cana and participate, you’ll have so much fun and learn a lot about the Dominican Republic!
Info & Tickets – A Lo Quisqueya Fest(for the English version of the website, click on the British flag icon at the lower right corner of the page)
Top photo: Caribbean Lake Park in Punta Cana
Photos courtesy of Laura Féliz
