The coronavirus, refractory to the physical and spiritual enjoyment that music and dance produces in Latin America, has put the lock on party venues and has turned the patios and streets in which Latin Americans have celebrated a day so many times. more of life. But if violence and poverty have not been able to take away its name from this eternal binge, a virus had little chance of doing so. Bagpipes and drums have sounded again in the Caribbean. Guitars are honed in Argentina. Mexican corridos and rancheras still have many love dramas to tell. The party continues in Latin America. Now they dance and sing on the internet.
Almost 2,000 people connected at some point on the night of July 26 to the second party that Radio Ambulante, one of the most relevant podcasts in Spanish distributed by NPR (the US public radio), organized remotely. At the peak of the event, 900 guests danced together, albeit from their living rooms, through Zoom, the most sought-after video calling tool in this pandemic. “From children dressed as superheroes dancing with their parents, to the elderly alone playing instruments. There is everything: families, couples, groups of friends, teenagers ... Of all ages, from many countries ”, says Jorge Caraballo, growth editor of a platform that is not dedicated to music, but to tell stories of America Latin.
I'm not crying, I just got the @radioambulante community celebrating life in one eye #FiestaRadioAmbulante 🥺🤩 https://t.co/nnJN4OPomG pic.twitter.com/F1Jl4NLzL7
- Suhayla Bazbaz (@SuhaylaCCIS) July 26, 2020The guests at the Radio Ambulante party have been confined for almost five months (in different ways) in their homes in Colombia, Mexico and Argentina, among other countries. The restriction has hit the waterline of Latin American culture hard: dance. Faced with this situation of a cultural pandemic, social networks have become a means of survival to overcome the economic and emotional crisis that for many citizens means to stop listening to music, hugging their partner and letting themselves be carried away by the rhythm. In La Troja, the temple of dance in Barranquilla, one of the regions of Colombia most affected by the coronavirus, the rumba stopped last March after 55 years without interruption. This salseadero is now a closed temple, but not dead, “never turned off”, as its owner, Edwin Madera, says. "We have had to reinvent ourselves," he says while explaining how he has used the virtual radio station Radio La Troja to continue with his task: that people do not stop dancing. "We do live sessions with DJ from La Troja to stay connected and thus continue to party with a recorder," says Madera. "We have listeners even in Sinai and Japan."
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#YoMeQuedoEnCasa #QuedateEnCasa #CuarentenaSalsera # Salsa2020 The #TrojerisimasDeLaSemana # Season4 arrived by @latrojaradio Every Saturday from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. (Col) with Nelson García @klavemania & Lina Redondo @ lina_redondo014 The most influential #HalsitPara014 #PlanetaMusical @latrojasalsa #SoyTrojero #Salsa #TrojerisimasDeLaSemanaLista # Agosto15De2020
A post shared by La Troja Radio, + Salsa q '🐟 (@latrojaradio) on Aug 22, 2020 at 6:13 pm PDT
Very close to Barranquilla, the champetúos, as the champeta dancers of the popular neighborhoods of Cartagena are called - whom Shakira placed on the map after uploading this rhythm to the SuperBowl stage - try to continue whipping tile inside their houses or taking out the picós, huge sound systems, to the balcony or to the doorway of the houses despite the prohibition of the Police.
"Given the restrictions, in the courtyards of many families the return to the origin of this type of party has prevailed, more personal, as when the first picós appeared in the forties," says Don Alirio, the picotero name behind which Carlos Mario is Mojica, curator and musical researcher of Afro-Latin rhythms, whose Twitter account has become another meeting point for music lovers who are fighting against quarantine: “I like to create and promote Afro-Caribbean and Caribbean sets in general whose purpose It is not only about making people dance, but also about generating something of interest among universal music lovers ”.
WANTED SAUCE? ... HAVE SAUCE!
The Peruvian master of cumbia, huayno and boogaloo, RAÚL PUCH and his SEXTETO. This genius is called 'I LOVE PARIS', a song by Cole Porter, covered many times by Lex Baxter, Frank Sinatra, Lilo, among others.
1972 | Hot | Peru pic.twitter.com/iprB7FTt1P
In Mexico City the first victims are already counted. The Los Angeles ballroom, the oldest in the country, open since the 1930s, has been closed for four months due to the pandemic. The owners are already considering building houses where Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, Gabriel García Márquez or Carlos Fuentes once danced. Others try to adapt to the times: on August 8, the first autoconcert was held in the capital. Attendees arrived in cars and with masks to the show of the Mexican band Moderatto.
Sundays in pandemic Argentina are less tedious thanks to the sessions of the instrumental musician and DJ, Nico Cota, who has played with Fito Páez, Luis Alberto Spinetta and Illya Kuryaki and the Valderramas and has been playing music around the world for 28 years. His party on Instagram at @nicocotareal begins at eight o'clock at night, while he “turns on dinner” and goes until ten, every Sunday. "My music always gave for the ATP (suitable for all audiences) but it is the first time that it can reach someone other than the adults who went to a place". The music producer who moves between funk and soul does not believe that the pandemic will radically change the way we dance, but he does believe that tools like Instagram have arrived to expand the dance experience for when all this happens.
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⚡️ THIS SUNDAY 20hs 🧨✨ IG Live 🇦🇷 Dj Nico Cota ✊🏼. #domincota
A post shared by Nico Cota (@nicocotareal) on Aug 21, 2020 at 2:04 pm PDT
Fiesta Bresh, a phenomenon in the south of the continent
But the dance in Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay goes on on Saturdays from Buenos Aires, with the Fiesta Bresh. A phenomenon that has managed to gather 850 thousand views with a peak of 83 thousand simultaneous visits through Instagram. Before it was a face-to-face meeting that brought together thousands of people in boliches (discos) and outdoor events and made tours, but since April it has moved to the rooms of the houses. “It has been a learning experience and totally different from a face-to-face party. The only thing it looks like is that it plays music, but the way of setting, the lights, the cameras, the interaction, everything is different. It has something performative, ”says Juane, producer and DJ at Fiesta Bresh. For an hour and a half, he and other DJs play music with "a very wide range" that brings together adults and families, quite a surprise for the team. From bed, with costumes or doing parallel parties in zoom with friends, or dressing as if they were going to the disco, everyone lives it as they want. "Once we received a video of a family in which the father disguised himself as a security guard and the mother as a barwoman so that her daughters 'entered' the Bresh Party," says the DJ of this party that has also attracted celebrities and trap musicians from Argentina.
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UNFORGETTABLE BRESHITA, HISTORICAL NIGHT OF LAS PIBAS 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
A post shared by BRESH (@fiestabresh) on Aug 23, 2020 at 4:53 pm PDT
The coronavirus, another pandemic for the Caribbean islands
From San Juan, in Puerto Rico, Mariana Reyes, cultural manager, hurriedly replies by email to EL PAÍS. A storm is coming and you don't know when you will be online again. The coronavirus joins the list of pandemics that plague the island since the terrible passage of Hurricane Maria in 2017. Its cultural center, La Goyco, located in the neighborhood where Ismael Rivera, one of the icons of salsa, grew up, has dodged this new crisis with digital workshops, in addition to becoming a help center: they have carried out tests to detect the virus and have distributed food. For September, they prepare the online launch of the long-awaited new album by Rita Indiana. And they will continue with digital pump and full workshops -two musical rhythms originating in Puerto Rico-. “The art sector's turn towards digital was almost immediate when the closure began on March 15th. Hurricane María left us a collective training in the art of solving practically any situation, "he says while acknowledging that this pandemic" cannot end dancing, whatever the genre, from salsa to intense perreo. "
Haydée Milanés is in the same situation from Havana. The storm has also hit Cuba. The singer, a renovator of Cuban jazz and daughter of musician Pablo Milanés, uses WhatsApp audios to explain, in the face of pandemic and climatic adversity, how the quarantine has sharpened - a little more - the ingenuity of Cuban artists to continue creating. “My accounts in networks are right now the means I have to reach my audience. We do live concerts at home, we record collaborations with other artists [among others with Omara Portuondo, singer from Buena Vista Social Club, and Chucho Valdés] ”, he says.
Dear friends! Today I present to you a very special collaboration ...
Tremendous pleasure to be able to share music with this giant, one of the greatest pianists and musicians in Cuba, whom I love and admire very much!
Thank you teacher @chuchovaldes
😍💓🌻 pic.twitter.com/waKBJpvIC4
“The confinement has led Cuban musicians to begin to pay off outstanding debts that they had with the management of networks. Many live concerts have been given through platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, they have been very active interacting with their followers on the networks, ”explains Rafa G. Escalona, head of the Cuban (and independent) musical magazine Magazine AM: PM . With Internet access limitations Cubans suffer from structural failures and the high price of the connection, many of these online concerts were broadcast on public television to reach more citizens. "We cannot directly access Zoom or Spotify, but alternatives have been sought, such as the use of bots in Telegram that allow access to YouTube music or streaming services such as Deezer," Escalona says. "There has been an explosion of channels on Telegram to share music." And when the internet fails, there is live music at home. “I hope that at some point we can meet again and dance. And if not, we will continue to do it in our homes. The body asks for it. Music will not cease to exist, it is something that human beings need spiritually ”, concludes Milanés.
With information from Constanza Lambertucci from Mexico.