Reisverhalen: ¡Musica!
Last weekend I received a call by my collegue and boss Roberto: There was a concert that very night by "William Luna" and "Grupo feminino Bolivia" in the Coloseum. So we went.
The coloseum is a sort of sport hall, used for example for international Basketball matches. This huge space filles three quarters, while we were waiting for William Luna.
William Luna was late. The public waited with their pop corn. Again there was another song from the cd. The public slowly lost their nerves. Whistles became more loud. Bottles flew in the direction of the stage... Finally he made his entrance with the band.
I dont know much about music, so I have to do with my very personal impression. William Luna combines Andean traditional music like the Wayno (I have to look it up how to spell it..) with popular music influences like singing about love and despair. Some instruments were traditionally Andean and he wore a woollen Poncho. The result was very sentimental.
William was welcomed very warmly, especially by the women of the public. All the time, there was at least one woman taking a photo with her in front of the stage on which he, William, was singing...
Apart from the very different form of music, I was strongly reminded in the phenomenon of Marco Bassato in the Netherlands with women adoring the star of the stadion, listening to his sentimental struggles with life.
The following main act was the "grupo feminino Bolivia". These women entered the stage in red Ponchos, played Bolivian traditional music with instruments, I have never seen before (e.g. a sort of very small guitar, which is played very rapidly, rhythm instruments as well as flutes from the Andes.) The music seemed to be very traditional. They had taken along dancers to perform the traditional dances with their music. Dressed in very finely made costumes, the dancers adapted to every new region, the women visited with their music.
Now, the men of the public were taking photos, every moment, the dancers had a break...
The "grupo feminino Bolivia" was a good and interesting final event of the weekend. The music for me is very strange, I still cannot hear differences, but in this concert, I could capture differences in atmosphere.
And I learned, that the traditional music here is not only the romanticised western image of "El Condor Pasa" but much more: There is the traditional music played in the villages, danced by the village dancers, but there is also a form of pop music develloped out of the very traditional forms, filling the stadions with screaming women and dreaming men...
Tuesday, I was confronted with a different musical experience: The night of "Musica Criolla". This form of music develloped from the colonial music. First there was the Austrian waltz danced by the high colonial society of Peru. The black servants however mixed it with their feeling of rhythm, there drums and their song about the important things of life.
The result is the "cansion criolla" which is played and listened in the bars of town. There is a lot of Cuba libre, Pisco sour and Cerveza which flows into the many mouths of the listeners, who in the course of the night, sing as hard as the performers, singign through the dramatic situations of lost lovers and suicidal emotions.
When the night of the criollian song is over, and we awake with a big hangover, we awake to spend the day of the mortals, the first of november...
vorig verhaal
