Bogotá, June 21 (EFE).- For an hour and a half, a room at the Teatro Mayor in Bogotá transported its attendees to the north of Spain, in the native Asturias of Rodrigo Cuevas, where the singer invited them to feel like Asturians of the hand of his folklore and sensual music that he performed for the first time in Colombia.
Cuevas brought his proposal on identity and sexual freedom to Diversity and Pride Month and served to inaugurate the Bogotá Mayor’s Festival for Equality.
He entered the theater waving his black fan and parading with a remodeled version of the traditional Asturian stilts among a cloud of smoke and lights that cut through the fog to illuminate him.
Cuevas (Oviedo, Asturias, 1985), brought to Colombia for the first time his sounds in which he combines the north of Spain starring tambourines and castanets with synthesizers of electronic music percussioned by four musicians who accompanied him on stage.
With its naturalized use of Asturian (Spanish dialect) and Spanish as vehicular languages and with a staging that broke with Colombian imagery, it transported attendees to an Asturian town celebrating one of its festivals.
“But who is Rodrigo Cuevas? “If he doesn’t even know us here in Colombia,” the artist asked himself at the beginning of the show before proceeding to describe what the pilgrimages that make up his theatrical and musical proposal are about.
The pilgrimage refers to a traditional festival in towns in Spain in which people spend the day in the countryside, among meadows like the ones Rodrigo grew up in and where he lives today: “The pilgrimage is going to the pasture with friends. to realize what a wonderful family you have.”
“I live in a very small town, like here but with pine trees, very green and with many climates throughout the day and many of the songs that I am going to sing refer to this place where only 12 inhabitants live,” he explained. with classic Spanish self-confidence and humor.
Last year, the singer was awarded the Spanish National Prize for Current Music for the “singularity” of his work, in which he vindicates the rural world and the power of folklore.
The work he presented is ‘Manual de romería’, which was released four years after his previous full-length album ‘Manual de cortejo’, awarded the 2019 Min Prize for world music and fusion.
The singer, composer and folklorist entertained one of the rooms of the Teatro Mayor Julio Mario Santo Domingo that was filled with laughter and enjoyment with his appearances full of humor and provocation.
Extroverted and free, Cuevas stopped at several moments to chat with the attendees ironically, even making them take off articles of clothing and throw them at him as he paraded.
However, his complaints were intelligent and profound, in which he took the opportunity to remember insults that were called to him in his school days with humor, and learning from others who used “bullies” in Colombia with the assistants.
“He who goes on a pilgrimage pays for it the next day,” Cuevas said goodbye to the audience, with whom he finally ended up surprised: “Even though it seemed like you weren’t moving, in the end we all danced.”
Paula Cabaleiro
