Live music and stuff in Santander and beyond, December 2021

This month was a bit hectic. I could have seen more — then again, I could have seen less. Now I read on the Rvbicón page that from 26^th of December they had to suspend all the cultural activities until further notice. Damn.

• 5 December: Jazz Jam @ Rvbicón, Calle del Sol 4
  The first of only two events of the seventh Raqueros del Jazz (postponed from ther last year) that I was able to attend. All familiar faces, with the base group featuring Chisco Villanueva (tenor sax), Rafa Santana (piano), Manuel Cavero (double bass) and Rodri Irizábal (drums) and guest musicians Manuel San Emeterio (guitar), Tom Ranby (alto sax) and others.

  

• 7 December: Marco Mezquida Dreams Trio @ Rvbicón
  With Marco Mezquida (piano), Martín Meléndez (cello) and Aleix Tobías (drums, percussion).
• 11 December: «Siri, ¿Tú qué piensas?» @ Café de Las Artes Teatro, Calle García Morato 4
  By Cía. Dunatacà (Valencia), featuring Mónika Vázquez and Andrea Torres; also, two random people from the audience taken to the stage, with yours truly just happening to be one of them.

• 18 December: «Good Sex Maritxu» @ Centro Municipal de Otxarkoaga, Casals Pau Hiribidea 19, Bilbao
  A play by Yolanda García Serrano, performed by Teatro Ttipia featuring Gurutze Beitia, Itxaso Kintana and Susana Soleto. Directed by Jose Cruz Gurrutxaga.

Back to Las Palmas: thanks to almost non-existent publicity, I almost missed the mercadillo musical (CDs, vinyls and merchadise of Canarian musicians) and its showcase programme DiscoBolo in the patio of Palacete Rodríguez Quegles. This week, we went to see some of the free concerts there — with no pre-registration, no COVID passports and, I am sorry to say, with very low attendance.

• 28 December: Sanches @ Palacete Rodríguez Quegles, calle Benito Pérez Galdós, 4
  A singer-songwriter in need of a proper singer.
• 29 December: Luis Merino @ Palacete Rodríguez Quegles
  Luis Merino (guitar) with José Carlos Cejudo (electric bass) performing compositions from Pelula and Blacky.
• 30 December: Augusto Báez and Germán López @ Palacete Rodríguez Quegles
  Augusto Báez (piano) played a few compositions from his latest album Piano Solo Vol. II; later, he was joined by Germán López (timple).

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was 2021.

El verano de su vida

by Thomas von Steinaecker and Barbara Yelin
translated by Itziar Hernández Rodilla

Weightlessness. The speed of light. Multiple worlds.

With chapter names like these, you’d expect El verano de su vida (original title Der Sommer ihres Lebens) to be some sort of sci-fi comic. It isn’t though. As her Earth life comes to an end, Gerda mentally travels in time, to that summer of her life (note The Dark Side of the Moon poster on p. 41) and beyond.

All your life You were only waiting for this moment to arise.

Did she miss her moment?

Susana y el sexo

a film by César Vallejo

La libertad sexual para una mujer pasa por no renunciar al placer, y por tener experiencias sexuales más seguras y libres, sin discriminación ni violencia. Porque no puede existir la verdadera libertad sin libertad sexual.

Susana Estrada

So says Susana Estrada (Gijón, 1950), the protagonist of an illuminating RTVE Play documentary, which I watched quite by chance, thanks to an article in elDiario.es. Until now, I had no clue who Estrada was and, luckily, still is. Who? The first Spanish actress to perform nude onstage; sex columninst in Play-Lady; the singer famous for songs such as ¡Quítate el sosten!, Voy desnuda and ¡Gózame ya! aka ¡Fóllame ya!; probably the first Spanish woman to employ bodyguards — well, everything that one should expect from the self-proclaimed “mujer icono e ‘icoño’ de la Transición”, and more.

Directed by César Vallejo. Screenplay by Valeria Vegas, Ángela Gallardo and César Vallejo. With participation of Celia Blanco, Fernando Castedo, María Ángeles Durán, Gracia Trujillo and others.