The historic Linyeras of La Boca make up the only humorous group left in the Corsican City. Italic music, clothes that evoke the neighborhood of the beginning of the century and laughter as a flag.
Dew Magnani
02/24/2020 - 7:31
- Clarín.com
- Society
"The Linyeras" do not leave a companion lying. It is 1956 and one of the members of the band, one of the typical carnival groups in the neighborhood of La Boca, is arrested for a minor violation. Days go by and they don't let go. Someone challenges the neighborhood commissioner: a match in the Bombonera itself. Blue uniforms versus the caricatural musicians followers of King Momo, most of them poor children of Genoese and Neapolitan immigrants working in the port . If they win the bet, the prisoner will be free.
More than sixty years have passed since that day and the legendary soccer confrontation only one sepia photo remains on the Boca court. That and the memory, probably exaggerated, of an eleven to zero in favor of the Linyeras.
The “Humorous, Choral, Musical and Recreational Group Los Linyeras of the Independent People's Republic of La Boca” is the only living humorous group of those who knew how to color the celebrations in the Quinquela Martín neighborhood. The last expression of the carnival of the popular neighborhoods of the City .
The Linyeras of La Boca rehearse on the way to Almagro's Corsican. Photo: Federico Imas
From the original squad there is only one member left: Ángel “Lito” Centurión, who was only two years old when in the early 1950s his father took him to parade with the Linyeras of La Boca. As if it were the baptismal act of his profession, he put on a white sailor's hat and put it on a subway and a half float in the form of a ship with the inscription "The lonely navigator" on one side.
"It's a passion, nobody explained to me what the carnival was, we lived it, we saw that they took out the accordions and the drums, and we went out with our costumes, " says, at 70, the last of the founding linemen.
Remember the group displayed along two blocks, singing sonatas and tarantelas on the banks of the Riachuelo. Also, to the neighbors of the convent, his family by extension, sewing costumes.
Ángel “Lito” Centurión debuted at Los Linyeras de La Boca at the age of two.
Linyeras was founded by residents of the neighborhood on November 15, 1951 in the Pasalacua café, three blocks from the Boca stadium. He grew up in those years as a reference in music and humor, but was disintegrated with the ban on meetings imposed by the dictatorship in 1976 and twenty years passed until, in 1995, he was able to leave again .
It would be re-founded by some of its old members and members of other historical groups that had been disarmed, such as Xeneizes and the Nenes de Suárez and Gaboto.
Today, the group resists, with the traditional spirit, the new Candombera currents and is part of the official Corsican circuit organized by the City Government, which this summer had 111 murgas classified in three genres.
Party of the group Los Linyeras de La Boca in La Bombonera.
The category "Murga Center" is the most traditional version of the Buenos Aires city and represents around 65% of the groups and practically all of those with more than 150 participants, according to the results of the Carnival 2019. It is characterized by the predominance of the hype with saucer and whistle. Also for the use of "fantasy", as they call the costumes, of frock coat, galley and gloves of the colors that identify the group.
The genre "Grouping murguera" maintains the same root of the murga of Buenos Aires, but with more flexibility. The "fantasy" must be homogeneous, but not as strictly uniform as those of the Murgas Centers. The songs can be sung by more people and, with the saucer drum, other wind, melodic and harmonic instruments can be added.
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Angel "Lito" Centurion
- AGE70
- CARGO Full member
He debuted in Linyeras at age two in a boat float made by his father. His companions made a video clip to honor one of his brothers at the Chacarita Cemetery.
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The last variant is that of "humorous grouping" , a label reserved for its only exponent. "In Los Linyeras de La Boca, we have prohibited the sequins, the sachet with tails, the nightcap and the bass drum with saucer ", explains the director of the group, Jorge Napoleone, owner of the traditional boquense bar El Samovar de Rasputín. “We are the extreme left of the Buenos Aires carnival . It springs from the neighborhood. Here was the first tenant strike, the eight-hour work day was managed in the port, the bakers named the friar's ball and the first woman, Julieta Antieri, voted. ”
Away from the music of jumps and kicks murgueras, the songs of the humorous groups are based on the tarantella and the traditional Italian music. They are characterized by choir singing, the lyrics that evoke the neighborhood and the old carnival and percussion with simple bass drum. The rhythm is also marked by two instruments that arrived with the waves of Neapolitan and Genoese immigrants: the zambomba and the hammer of shock.
The crash hammer arrived in La Boca with Genoese and Neapolitan immigrants.
To that, they add, as indispensable harmonic instruments, the accordion or the bandoneon, and melodic winds. For example, Linyeras have a trumpet and an euphoric euphonium.
Lito Zone, 67, made a zambomba to give to the jury of the corso of Lambaré Street, in Almagro, and shows it to a companion in “the bar of Napo”, which functions as a meeting point for group departures . He learned from a neighbor about 15 years ago: “You need a finite cane, a can of powdered milk or an eight-kilogram can of tomato and goat leather, which I bought in Boedo. Three zambombas come out of a goat. ”
The zambomba is one of the typical instruments of Los Linyeras de La Boca. Photo: Federico Imas
The humorous groups are prior to the arrival of the Murgas Centers and its boom was in the 30s and 40s , the musician, workshop and specialized researcher Coco Romero contributes to Clarín. "You can find groups like Los Chafalotes de Palermo that called themselves humorous groups, but the epicenter was the neighborhood of La Boca, where the immigrant community had found in the carnival an expressive way out of the aesthetics of the italic."
The costume is the other central element of the humorous grouping . Each member attends with his character, which can be thought of individually or together, if it is to recreate one of the typical humor numbers. One of the most classic performances is a baby who walks with a bubble filled with dulce de leche and a spoon to try to invite the public. Another sketch that they never lack is that of the dead man's drawer that is revived, surrounded by the mourners and the widow who cry on the spectators' shoulders.
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Jorge Napoleone
- AGE60
- CARGODirector
Musician born and raised in La Boca, Carnival was his first artistic awakening. He integrated the historic group Los Nenes de Suárez y Gaboto.
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For Romero, "when rescuing the costume, the Linyeras retake the most vital expression of the Buenos Aires Carnival ." In addition, he points out that the presence of so many older people in the group is key. "They are not afraid of disguise because they have experienced carnival as something natural."
Miguel Ángel Di Meo, 69, travels in a school bus that the group hired to go to the Almagro corso. He wears a bishop's costume - always the same in all the presentations, he says - and a banner that shows a line with a burlap bag walking along the tracks of the Roca railway that cross the neighborhood of La Boca.
Three generations of Miguel Ángel Di Meo's family are part of Los Linyeras de La Boca. Photo: Federico Imas
"This carnival you carry inside or do not serve," he explains. Three generations of his family are part of Los Linyeras . His nephew-godson goes from the clown of the movie It, based on Stephen King's book, while his partner put on a red romper like La Casa de Papel. In the front seats go the eleven-three-year-old nephews-grandchildren. "I now wear the zombie mask," the Walking Dead fan has a serious face.
"Because we are the linemen and we come from the riverside neighborhood", the musicians sing at the bottom of the bus. There is a Gauchito gil, a tano with mustache - the most typical character of the group - a Katerina, a Cristina Kirchner and a drunk hugging a lantern. It looks like a circus caravan .
In Los Linyeras de La Boca, winds are key instruments. Photo: Federico Imas.
-Mom, mom, I took a 7.50 in the test- interrupts in a loud voice the woman wearing the triangle.
-Proof of what? - They answer.
- Breathalyzer! - Rosa Herminia Dolcini finishes
At 72, what he likes best, he says, is walking down the street among people, taking pictures and making jokes. In Los Linyeras, his figure is central: he is one of the main voices on stage and one of the most charismatic comedians. 50 years ago, that would have been unthinkable.
Humorous groupings were male territory . "Culturally, the woman had to take care of the costumes of the children or bring the water while they paraded," he says after getting off the bus. “Although I was not part of the troupes, I went out with the Nenes de Suárez and Gaboto, because there was my husband - now, another“ lineman ”-. I used to go ahead of everything, dancing for fun. ”
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Rosa Herminia Dolcini
- AGE72
- CARGO Main voice and tilín
When he started dating humorous groups, it was usual for men to disguise themselves as women and they would be in charge of making costumes and caring roles.
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Gender roles changed, in the same way they became the murgas. More and more music is seen that plays the hype or directs, and the "women's costume" is no longer used, because now they are protagonists .
The Linyeras parade down Lamabaré street as in the old Corsicans of La Boca, when the houses were completely empty: there were between 15 and 20 groups, and the largest had “spectacular” floats, such as the one of Verdurita that carried “one of one six meter carrot. ” Or the “little beach” of Los Nenes de Suárez y Gaboto, which was a transport truck loaded with sand and a pelopincho on top.
According to Rosa, the group's walk evokes the way in which Italian peasants climbed the mountain, rolling up their pants so as not to embark. He says it is incomprobable.
2/19/20. The Linyeras of La Boca appeared in Almagro. Photo: Federico Imas - FTP CLARIN FIM_9410.jpg Guest Z
From the stage, Ricardo “El Sordo” Cigliutti (64), thanks Borda, Moyano and the Federal Penitentiary Service for having let out the linens to the carnival and begins to recite: “We live on the edge of the dark Riachuelo and we are contaminated from the feet to the hairs. We have cadmium, arlenic and celenium, and also chromium, phenols and benzene. There is in the blood mercury, nickel and lead, which along the toluene runs through the whole loin . ”
The verse corresponds to criticism, a resource of political claim that the group incorporated from the murga, as part of the celebration of the carnival organized by the City Government. In general, the lyrics of Los Linyeras evoke the shared bathroom in the convent, the lack of water and the Boquense identity .
The costume is the choice of each person, in the group Los Linyeras de La Boca. Photo: Federico Imas
“Linyeras is the last example of a carnival that will never return, because La Boca was the port, the tanneries, the sandbox and the refrigerator and it was its laborers, who today are big and dying. People today prefer the chim pum, ”says Cigliutti in reference to the murga. The one of the Lovers of La Boca has, for example, about 400 participants, four times more than the Linyeras get to summon.
Why is carnival so popular in this neighborhood? For Napolitano, “it is a pagan party, where you take out what you have inside , go out to have fun and forget everything even for a while.
"It is a neighborhood - continues the director of the group - that currently has heavy problems, with much eviction and with people living overcrowded, in a piece of 4 by 4. If we did not take things with humor, we would not be what we are. Because even though the tenement house had those things, people were happy. And we are happy in spite of everything. "
