At 8:10 p.m. on a gloomy August evening, my friend Cristina Incio del Río cranks up her circa 2002 Opel Corsa, and soon we leave behind the pastel-colored single-family houses of Irixoa, the village in Galicia, northern Spain, where I grew up.
Carolina Cornax, Cristina’s friend from Madrid, sits in the back while I claim the front, riding shotgun for the next hour as we head to Monterroso, a village in Lugo hosting the ninth edition of Agrocuir, a free festival celebrating rural queerness.
Cristina, a 29-year-old straight woman, first heard about Agrocuir after moving to Santiago de Compostela in 2019, where she became involved in foliadas, traditional Galician gatherings where people sing and dance to the sound of bagpipes and tambourines. Most of her friends are queer, so she decided to come for the first time to show her support and celebrate with them.
“As a woman, I feel that our oppressions are similar through the patriarchy,” she says. “There are many things I can understand because they are the same as what I experience.”
As someone who doesn’t conform to certain Eurocentric beauty standards — particularly regarding body hair — she feels safer in queer spaces, especially in one like Agrocuir where the party isn’t centered around drinking: “Here, I can have much more in common with people than in a heteronormative space,” she says.
Cristina’s words resonate with Carolina, a bisexual woman who grew up attending Madrid Pride, a celebration she believes has veered away from its activist roots and been swallowed by capitalism (some sources in this piece asked to go only by their first name to maintain safety and privacy around their sexual orientation).
Agrocuir, Carolina says, serves to raise awareness of realities that have been marginalized — and to debunk the myth that queerness can only thrive within the constraints of a city. “This is another way of celebrating queerness that can’t be seen in Madrid and hasn’t been commercialized,” she says.
Agrocuir’s first iteration was launched a decade ago by a group of friends who, tired of going to the city of Vigo to celebrate Pride, decided to organize their own LGBTI gathering, says María Garrido, a 31-year-old Agrocuir organizer.
Marta Álvarez, part of this group, owned a farm similar to the ones popping up along the road as we drive by, and soon she was hosting dozens of visitors.
In the second year, approximately 100 people came to the 3,600-person village, María recalls, and by 2019, the festival had outgrown Marta’s farm and required a larger space. Three years later, it officially blew up. With five stages and hundreds of attendees coming to Monterroso, the village’s resources were stretched thin. Restaurants struggled to meet the food demand and some people had to drive miles away to find accommodation, María tells me.
If the festival was to endure, organizers knew they had to rethink their strategy. Last year, the first edition I attended, they adopted a degrowth vision, reducing the number of artists performing and limiting their impact in the village with fewer and smaller stages and less trash left behind.
More rural queer festivals started to appear throughout the Iberian Peninsula, so it was time for Agrocuir to go back to its roots as a verbena, a term used to define a village party that features music and local food. “It was a much more manageable year that helped us learn what was essential about the festival,” says María.
This year’s edition promises to uphold that ethos while deepening its intersectional principles. Besides the rainbow flags decorating the houses along the main avenue, Monterroso is also dotted with banners against Altri, a Portuguese company that wants to open a cellulose factory in the region. Neighbors protest that the industrial site would worsen air quality and negatively affect the Ulla River, constraining the village’s future.
“Agrocuir is a major protest against Altri and a significant proposal for what development could look like without relying on destructive megaprojects,” says María. This month, thousands of people gathered in Santiago de Compostela, the capital of Galicia, to protest against Altri’s presence in the region.
Around 9:30 p.m., Cristina finally parks next to a low-rise house and we head to the sports-center-turned-campsite. After setting up our tents alongside 54 others inside the red metal structure, Cristina picks up her tambourine and the three of us walk towards the Praza do Froito (Fruit Square) where a group of people are protesting against Altri from the 23-year-old bandstand.
Like last year, streets are draped with strings of sewn aprons, symbolizing the rural women who offered a comforting space for many queer people. Aprons, particularly those featuring tattersall plaid, hold a special place in Galician culture, evoking images of grandmothers clutching a handful of grelos (rapini, a vegetable similar to collard greens). I even have a tattoo of my grandmother and her sister wearing these garments.
That night, before Palestinian-Galician DJ Saya turns the bandstand into a stage, I meet Brais Besteiro, a 29-year-old Monterroso native who moved to Santiago de Compostela when he was 18 for college. Considered the “first out gay in Monterroso” — a claim supported by his friends — he officially came out in high school but said he was always a “flamboyant child.”
“I loved to dance when I was little, put on my mum’s heels and dress up as a princess at 8,” he says. “I’ve always been very lucky, because I lived in a village where no one else behaved like I did.”
Agrocuir, he says, has deeply changed the village’s character. Growing up surrounded by female friends, he was simply known as the high school’s “faggot,” describing his teenage years as a “celibate” period that only ended when he left the village.
But in this decade, Monterroso’s youth have become more open and fluid, experimenting with their sexuality free from the social norms that shaped Brais’ experience. “It was a big change,” he says. “Suddenly, I come back here, and there were many people with similar experiences.”
If I want to understand how Agrocuir has shaped Monterroso, Brais suggests I speak with his mother Lola, who owns the village’s haberdashery. But first I join those voguing and dancing muiñeiras, Galicia’s national dance, to the sound of tambourines and techno. The whole square is engulfed in a poppers-like aroma, and suddenly it’s 5 a.m. We decide to walk back to the tent and try to rest for the verbena that awaits tomorrow.
The first coffee I drink on Saturday at noon gives me just enough energy to walk over to Lola’s haberdashery, called “Casa Gaseosas” (Soda House), honoring its past as a soft drink factory. The rainy morning casts a muted patina over the apartments along the main avenue until I notice the rainbows hanging from the haberdashery’s façade — a colorful defiance against the otherwise somber weather.
Flanked by a mountain of cardboard boxes towering behind her, Lola tells me that she has been working in the haberdashery, the place where she was born, for 45 years. The village, she tells me, used to be a bustling hub, especially after the construction of a prison in 1982, which brought a wave of public servants to Monterroso.
But in recent decades, the population has aged, and many young people have been forced to migrate to cities, triggering a rural exodus that has left many villages as mere shells of what they once were.
“This is dying because people aren’t opening new businesses; most of us are closing down due to retirement,” Lola says. The only business that has opened recently in Irixoa, I note, is a funeral home — a grim prophecy. “The village is dying,” she says. “Like all the others.”
Agrocuir seems to have reversed that trend, if only slightly, breathing life into the village. Although it only takes place during one weekend a year, it benefits local businesses and has even prompted some LGBTQ people to move to the area.
“It’s wonderful, perhaps what leaves the greatest economic impact on the village,” Lola says. At first, the throngs of gender-nonconforming people — especially AMAB individuals wearing skirts — shocked the village; however, this exposure soon fostered acceptance. “People are delighted,” she says.
While heading to Souto do Caracacho, the park outside the village hosting performances and different vendors, I encounter Raquel, a 37-year-old woman who works at a local supermarket. She says that Agrocuir should span four days instead of just a weekend and celebrates the shift in mindset it has inspired in the village, especially among older residents.
“At first, not really, but now they take it well. They are very happy,” she says.
Carmen Sanjulián, 80, and her sister Julia, 79, seem to confirm Raquel’s words. While weaving through the bustling crowd heading to the Souto, the sisters express their gratitude to those celebrating this verbena alongside them. “They bring a lot of life to the village; there are many young people,” says Julia. “They’re extraordinary, well-mannered.”
Alba Lopez might be one of the young people the sisters are referring to. A 29-year-old bisexual woman from Ribadeo, this is her second year at Agrocuir, and she remains amazed by the intersection between its rural and queer character.
“We tend to believe that queerness belongs to the city, and at first, it can be quite shocking, but it’s really cool because you see that all the neighbors collaborate,” she says. “That connection is great, as both ultimately exist under a single hegemony.”
Back in the village, I’m at the sports center, where I come to grab a sweater before the drag cabaret closes the performances at the Souto. Here, in front of my tent, I meet up with Branca, 22, Candela, 20, and Celia, 28, three bisexual friends from southern Galicia who came to the Agrocuir for the first time.
Besides the festival’s cultural program, including workshops on non-monogamy and traditional dance, they admire its self-managed character, which encourages attendees to get involved in the shared spaces.
“They ensure that small things like the bathroom are independently managed, and that you keep it clean through a collective effort,” says Branca. “I had never seen it before,” adds Candela.
As the attendees soak in some rays of a sun that finally made its appearance, I speak with the people behind the various stalls scattered around the Souto. The two women behind this year’s poster, Bollera de Barrio (Neighborhood Dyke) tell me they started creating dyke-related merch to make up for the lack of “cool designs” catering to this group, while Larlilás, a collective of feminist women, tell me about their project to build a center where people can enjoy an “active aging process.”
All are grateful that, through Agrocuir, they’re able to solidify their queer network with other like-minded people who engage with their initiatives. “Although there are younger people here, we come to meet others, and the truth is it works—you always end up talking to people, and they show interest,” says Carme, a 60-year-old university professor and member of Larlilás.
Around 8:30, I join those singing traditional songs with their tambourines, bagpipes and charrascos as they walk down the hill toward the village to enjoy one last night of music at Praza do Froito.
Fernando de Alba, a 29-year-old nonbinary friend marching while draped in a fuchsia boa, praises Agrocuir’s communal spirit, an oasis where every identity is accepted and cherished. “It’s a space of inspiration and freedom,” he says. “Here I am safe, no matter what happens.”
When the sun finally sets, the whole village of Monterroso is once again engulfed in the ringing sound of bagpipes, and Cristina and I elbow our way into a bar selling licor café (coffee liquor,) which will help me stay up past some of my New York friends’ bedtimes, six time zones behind.
The next morning, later than I told my parents, Cristina, Carolina and I drag ourselves back to the Opel Corsa and leave Monterroso behind, at least until next year. Hopefully, more Agrocuirs will emerge, making the wait between these queer havens more bearable. But for now, it’s time to pack up the tambourines, fold the aprons and head back home.