Free live music in Las Palmas, June 2021

Every June, our city celebrates the anniversary of its foundation in 1478. The programme of Fiestas fundacionales this year was very impressive and we were lucky to attend many cultural events. Unfortunately, there were no fireworks in Las Canteras on San Juan Night; that’ll have to wait till 2022.

• 5 June: Rocío Pozo Compañía Flamenca: «#Lorca. Federico García» @ Plaza de Santa Ana, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
  Spectacular dance, excellent guitarist, quite satisfactory singing and incredibly annoying MC — I wish she stayed home and let the dancers and musicians do their thing.

• 12 June: Las Migas @ Auditorio José Antonio Ramos, Parque Doramas
  The last concert of Musicando this spring season — and it couldn’t have been better! Alicia Grillo (guitar), Carolina Fernández ‘La Chispa’ (lead vocals, dance), Roser Loscos (violin) and Marta Robles (guitar), with Oriol Riart (double bass) and a surprise guest appearance of “our own” Hirahi Afonso (timple).

• 17 June: Rycardo Moreno @ Teatro Guiniguada, Plaza F. Mesa de León
  The last Mousikê masterclass till Autumn. It’s been ages since I held a guitar in my hands so maybe not immediately useful but I found Rycardo’s classification of guitar chords according to emotion (e.g. “feliz como un niño” or “triste, pero no tan terrible”) rather poetic.

• 17 June: Miriam Fleitas & D’Local Groove @ Auditorio José Antonio Ramos
  The funky side of La Local Jazz Band: Miriam Fleitas (vocals) with Miqui Delgado (piano), Samantha de León (electric bass), Luis Merino (guitar), Ernesto Montenegro (trumpet), Miguel Ramírez (sax) and Suso Vega (drums).

• 19 June: Freedonia @ Parque Santa Catalina
  The line-up has changed dramatically since I saw them last time — three years ago already! Still, it was a pleasure to see Freedonia (a)live and kicking with Deborah Ayo (vocals), Israel Checa (drums), Álvaro Galera (guitar), Toni García (trumpet), Jorge Moreno (trombone), Dani Niño (tenor sax), Chavi Ontoria (keyboards), Fran Panadero (bass) and David Pérez (baritone sax).

  

• 20 June: Djazia Satour @ Auditorio José Antonio Ramos
  Fantastic show of Djazia Satour (vocals, guitar) with Benoit Richou (guitar, vocals), Rémi D’Aversa (drums, keyboards, vocals) and Quentin Langlois Andréoulis (banjo, violin, percussion).

• 22 June: The Bootleg Beatles @ Parque Santa Catalina
  What an evening! Two hours of unadulterated Beatles fun, from It Won’t Be Long to Let It Be, courtesy of the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band consisting of, naturally, John (Tyson Kelly), Paul (Steve White), George (Stephen Hill) and Ringo (Gordon Elsmore), plus Mr. Tambourine-and-keyboard Man (Max Langley).

• 24 June: Sofiel del Pino and Pablo Milanés @ Parque Santa Catalina
  Pablo Milanés is kind of an institution in the Hispanic world; I was not about to miss his performance in Las Palmas. Accompanied by Cary Rosa Varona (cello) and Miguelito Núñez (piano) and only occasionally playing guitar, he revisited his vast repertoire, including Años, Días de Gloria and Yolanda. The supporting act, featuring Sofiel del Pino (vocals, guitar), Totó Noriega (percussion, vocals) and Yuniel Rascón Falcón (guitar, tres), was as great as expected and provided me with a glimpse of «Ya nadie toca como Matamoros», the only Musicando show that I couldn’t attend in April.

  

• 26 June: Sergio Alonso Quintet: «Tributo a Dave Brubeck» @ Edificio Miller, Parque Santa Catalina
  Sergio A. Alonso (piano), Neftalí Robaina (sax), Javier Montero (drums), Carlos Meneses (double bass) and Santiago “Chago” Miranda (guitar). The programme included such Brubeck classics as Blue Rondo à la Turk, Bluette, Bossa Nova U.S.A., In Your Own Sweet Way, It’s a Raggy Waltz, Kathy’s Waltz, Unsquare Dance and, of course, Paul Desmond’s Take Five.

  

Starting 26^th June, the face mask is not obligatory outdoors any longer, provided the safety distance, etc. etc. Looking forward to open-air concerts next month!

High Maintenance / דני קרוון

a film by Barak Heymann

Until today, I had no clue who was Dani Karavan (1930—2021), although I must have been inside his creation, Straße der Menschenrechte (the Way of Human Rights) in Nuremberg. Now that I know about Passatges in Catalonia, I’d love to see it too.

This film follows Mr. Karavan on a journey to revisit his works in Israel and Europe. And man, he gets angry. The concept of wabi-sabi is clearly lost on Dani: in his view, all his masterpieces should last till the end of times. (Also, people must remember him forever, or at least that’s what he tells Wim Wenders, of all people.) But how could it be if their state of maintenance is, according to Dani, simply appalling?

Funny, touching, inspiring, a joy to watch and the first documentary in years that is not too long.

Tchindas

a film by Pablo García Pérez de Lara and Marc Serena

I really wanted to like this film. So I went to the screening and a colloquium organised by Filmoteca Canaria and featuring the very Tchinda Andrade, whose name became an affectionate word to refer to queer people on São Vicente. Perhaps I was expecting too much. I didn’t stay for colloquium though.

I mean, it’s not bad. It’s just during these 94 minutes not much happens. During the run-up to Carnival, Elvis Tolentino is busy designing and making the dresses. Tchinda Andrade sells her homemade street food, coxinhas de Tchinda. The third protagonist, Edinha Pitanga, does nothing apart from smoking, chatting, and dancing samba in the end. There’s no plot, no development, no drama. Also, for a change, no misery and no violence. Is this enough for a documentary? I’m not sure. For all I know, it could have been a promo commissioned by Cape Verdean tourist board to position São Vicente as LGBTQ+ friendly destination. Which, again, is not a bad thing. And you can’t go wrong with the music of Cesária Évora.

La Última Cena

a film by María Sánchez Torregrosa and Toni Agustí

I can’t pretend I understood everything in this film — in the best Spanish tradition, “todos hablan a la vez”. And I mean, todos y todas. So not a fiction then. A group of friends (at least, some of them appear to be friends) come together in an apartment to have a dinner. Just a dinner. Well aware that they are filmed — the cameramen are walking among them — but acting as if they were not. So not a documentary either. What is it?

It is an experiment. The actors were given some minimal description of their characters. No script and full freedom to improvise. It could have gone worse or better, more or less funny, more or less believable. (The awkward silence at the beginning of the third part, La Fiesta, seems to be genuine.) What’s important, it can’t be repeated. Ever.

Watching La Última Cena, you become acutely aware that it couldn’t have been filmed now. In the end it is revealed that the film was shot in December 2019, just three months before the lockdown started. And, while I personally don’t miss all these hello-goodbye kisses, I do appreciate the movie’s (probably unintentional at the time of making) nostalgic vibe.

Siete Breves Lecciones de Fisica

by Carlo Rovelli
translated by Francisco J. Ramos Mena

It’s the story of my life. I first saw this book in the library, at the new books stand by the entrance. Even browsed through it, thinking that I might fancy to read it. Then went to another floor briefly. Sure enough, when I came back, it was gone.

I never saw it again at the new books stand (well, that was a couple of years ago, so it’s not new anymore) and I forgot the name of the author. So, one day I waded into the physics section and... found it. Now that I know the name, I can tell you: it was next to other books by Rovelli.

I could have swallowed it in one evening but I somehow managed to prolong the pleasure for almost a week. Even if you hated physics in school — especially if you hated physics in school — I promise, you’ll enjoy this book. And if you are still in school: the same. Till now, I had no clue who Rovelli the scientist is — one of the founders of loop quantum gravity theory, of which he talks in Grains of space, that’s who, but this fact is almost tangential to the way Rovelli tells the story. To write about complex stuff in such an easy language is a gift, and the author is not afraid to use it. According to Wikipedia, Seven Brief Lessons on Physics was translated into 42 languages, which makes it the most translated Italian book after Pinocchio. I read it in Spanish. I suppose the original is as a joy to read.

La teoría más hermosa (The most beautiful of theories) Los cuantos (The quanta) La arquitectura del cosmos (The architecture of the cosmos) Partículas (Particles) Granos de espacio (Grains of space) La probabilidad, el tiempo y el calor de los agujeros negros (Probability, time and the heat of black holes) Nosotros (Ourselves)

Leonard Bernstein en Gran Canaria

a film by Pedro Schlueter

There is precious little material on the subject that one can actually show. No footage. Some photographs. Old newspapers. Some anecodotes told by Justus Frantz. Still, thanks to this film produced by Espacio Digital — it’s a bit of a stretch to call it a documentary — I learned a few things. Why, I didn’t even know that Bernstein visited Gran Canaria. But apparently, starting mid-1970s, he lived here for extended periods and even was considering buying a house in the south of the island. Now if he did, we would see much more than drone photography of the hills.

Jon Lord’s 80th

by Timur Kulikov

Happy belated 80^th birthday, Jon Lord.

Video Blues

a film by Emma Tusell

Filmoteca Canaria kicks off the new cycle of films that, um, won something at the Rizoma festival — we’ll see what it’s all about. I was not particularly impressed with the opening feature. I mean, there is a limit how much bad quality home video and equally bad sound one could (let alone should) endure. To misquote a quote misattributed to one Bill Gates, ten minutes ought to be enough for anybody. Instead, we have 74 minutes of poorly edited footage that might, or might not, be of sentimental value for the director’s family. For the rest of humankind, it’s not funny, not touching, and not so interesting.

Bezimena

by Nina Bunjevac
translated by Montse Meneses Vilar

Exquisitely illustrated, dark and pretty disturbing tale, found by chance in our public library. It’s said to be a modern take on the myth of Artemis and Siproites, although it appears to be fused with that of Artemis and Actaeon. I found the frame story featuring the titular Bezimena (“nameless” in Serbian) superfluous and, consequently, the graphic novel as a whole lacking a closure. Well worth reading and maybe re-reading nonetheless; just don’t give it as a gift without reading it yourself first.

The afterword relates the author’s own experience of attempted sexual assault and, in part, explains why the book was created.

Una Habitación Propia con WiFi

by Raquel Riba Rossy

The first and the last time I’ve been to the Gran Canaria Espacio Digital was 12 March 2020, to see Mujeres al alba. Immediately after that I received the message that all activities in this centre were suspended until... well, much later than they (and everybody else) expected. The nationwide state of alarm was declared on 14 March. So no Lola Vendetta workshop for us, and no Amparo Sánchez talk either.

One year later, RRR published one more Lola Vendetta comic. To my joy, Lola dumps the cuddly boy acquired in the previous book and adopts a dog instead. Which, we know by now, is a wise move in times of pandemic. Oh, right: in between these events, pandemic starts and goes on; Lola moves to the titular own room (a nod to that essay by Virginia Woolf) and leaves her katana behind... Surprisingly, the new, katana-less Lola continues to be cool. To the degree that God finally engages in conversation with her (confessing that the internet connection is not that good up there). For me, Lola’s witty and touching chats with Death (a woman) are the best.