Opening the Pachanga: Eight Nights with OLA of Eastern Long Island

At an OLA Pachanga, the invitation is simple: come for the music, bring your friends and make room for dancing.

For Mila Tina, the celebration has also become a place to experiment, collaborate and bring different parts of her work together. Between 2017 and 2025, she performed at eight Pachangas across three venues.

Across those years, singers, a martial artist, a poet and a spoken word performer joined her openings. Each brought a different language to the stage. Together, they helped set the tone for an evening built around Latin music, cultural heritage and community.

2017: Peace, unity and a home-studio recording

The first of those nights was March 11, 2017, at Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor. OLA’s “Pachanga por Paz y Unidad,” a party for peace and unity, featured Skylar Day, Certain Moves, Mila Tina and Mambo Loco.

It also premiered a community rendition of Ben E. King’s “Stand by Me,” bringing together local musicians, young singers and community leaders, including Jay Schneiderman on congas.

The project took shape in Mila’s home studio, where she and her father, Willy Fuentes, recorded, mixed and produced the track. The participating musicians then performed their version of “Stand by Me” together at Bay Street.

OLA executive director Minerva Perez described the project to the East End Beacon as an expression of unity at a time of growing hostility toward immigrants.

For a celebration dedicated to peace and unity, making the song together gave the theme a tangible form.

Read the East End Beacon’s coverage of the 2017 Pachanga.

2018 and 2019: ¡Viva la Mujer! and ¡Fuerza y Alma!

On April 6, 2018, the Pachanga returned to Bay Street with “¡Viva la Mujer!” Spanish singer Virginia Garcia Alves joined Mila’s opening, bringing her voice to a night celebrating women. She performed The Heroine’s Journey. Mambo Loco returned with the Latin music that had helped establish the event’s character.

Speaking to the press before the show, Minerva described Mila’s contribution:

“[Mila]’s use of music, movement and raw rhythm transforms pain into pure joy and a life force of epic proportions.”

Minerva Perez, Hamptons.com, 2018

On April 19, 2019, Mila returned for “¡Fuerza y Alma!” Strength and soul. The venue was familiar, while the new theme offered another starting point for the performance.

2021: Be & Become, from film to the Parrish

Be & Become began as Mila’s contribution to Myth & Motion, an OLA project led by Minerva Perez during the COVID-19 pandemic to support young people experiencing depression, isolation and anxiety.

Mila collaborated with singer-songwriter Skylar Day on the project. She created Be & Become as a live performance captured on video and audio for the concert film.

On August 20, 2021, she brought the piece to the terrace of the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill for the Pachanga, presented in partnership with the museum under the theme “¡Visión y Acción!”

Her guest was Svitlana Zavialova, also known as Wu Woman, an actress, physical theater performer and world champion in traditional Wushu. Together, they brought Be & Become into the live setting, pairing Mila’s drumming with Svitlana’s martial arts and movement before Mambo Loco took the evening into dancing.

The following month, on September 18, 2021, Myth & Motion was featured at Sag Harbor Cinema as part of the Under 21 program at OLA’s 18th Annual Latino Film Festival of the Hamptons. The 28-minute video concert brought the project’s music and images to a cinema audience.

2022: Rumi on the terrace

The next year brought another kind of dialogue.

On June 24, 2022, the Parrish and OLA presented “One Community,” during OLA’s 20th anniversary year. Mila’s guest was Haleh Liza Gafori, the Iranian American poet, translator, vocalist and performer whose translations of Rumi appeared in Gold that year.

For Mila, the attraction to Rumi is personal: the simplicity with which his poetry can express something as expansive as universal love, making it feel immediate and palpable in the body.

Haleh’s interpretation of the poetry met Mila’s drums and music. It was a collaboration between language and rhythm, with words written centuries earlier finding a place in an evening on the East End.

The evening was part of The Heroine’s Journey.

Mambo Loco once again supplied the music for dancing.

2023: Truth and healing

The Pachanga returned to Bay Street on April 21, 2023, under the theme “Truth and Healing / Verdad y Sanación.”

This time, spoken word artist Sydney Rai, creator of the movement practice Dance to Freedom, joined Mila. Sydney’s work with language and movement entered a performance built around percussion, dance, visuals and technology.

The pairing continued a thread running through the openings: inviting artists from different practices to shape the performance together. Mambo Loco followed with its familiar Latin sound.

2024: ¡Fuerza y Pasión!

On April 19, 2024, women led the entire musical lineup.

The theme was “¡Fuerza y Pasión!” Mila’s opening included a segment from RitmoFit XP, the workout series she co-created with Vanessa Acero of Alumbra Sport, combining dance, martial arts, breathwork and live drumming.

Her special guest was Mongolian singer Úyanga Bold, billed that evening as Inana Lu Rose, whose voice appears on the soundtrack of Disney’s Mulan.

Lulada Club, the New York all-women salsa band led by Andrea Chavarro, closed the evening. From the opening percussion to the salsa set, women were composing, collaborating and leading the room.

2025: Gracias a la Vida

On April 5, 2025, the Pachanga arrived at the Suffolk Theater in Riverhead for the first time. Under the theme “Elevate, Collaborate, Thrive,” Los Tigres, the eight-piece Latin ensemble led by Nick Corredor, headlined.

Mila’s multimedia opening centered on her reworking of “Gracias a la Vida,” written by Chilean songwriter Violeta Parra, drawing on Mercedes Sosa’s interpretation. She restructured the song and built new sound around it, bringing a piece of her Chilean heritage into the performance. Her opening drew from Mujer Luna.

Her guest was Carolina Oliveros, the Colombian singer and percussionist known for her work with Combo Chimbita. Together, they played Colombian rhythms, including “Asfixia,” the debut single from Carolina’s solo project, released that February.

Mila Tina at the Suffolk Theater, April 5, 2025. Photos: Martin Rodriguez, except the full moon still, taken from video. Swipe for more.

Before the first note

Some of Mila’s work for the Pachanga reaches the audience before the doors open.

Her relationship with OLA began with graphic design, creating posters, flyers and other event materials. It grew to include redesigning the organization’s logo and visual identity, developing its website and supporting its digital presence, alongside her performances and music production.

She has designed every Pachanga flyer, including the 2026 edition, when La Herencia brought the celebration back to Bay Street on May 2 under the theme “One Community / Una Comunidad.”

Designing the invitation, producing the music, then arriving with drums: the job description had become somewhat ambitious.

A shared celebration

Minerva Perez and the OLA team have made the Pachanga a recurring space for Latino cultural expression and for neighbors to gather through music and dance.

For Mila, those invitations have provided room to develop her work alongside artists whose voices, histories and practices bring something of their own. The home-studio sessions, poetry, martial arts and musical collaborations are all part of that relationship.

And every opening leads into the larger celebration: the next musicians take the stage, friends find each other, and there is still a whole night of dancing ahead.

OLA’s Pachanga, presented by OLA of Eastern Long Island. Performance venues: Bay Street Theater, Sag Harbor (2017, 2018, 2019, 2023 and 2024); Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill (2021 and 2022); Suffolk Theater, Riverhead (2025). 2025 photographs: Martin Rodriguez.