Laura Isabel Ramírez has been singing since she was a child like her mother. Miguel Velásquez (MV) remembers his father when he played the piano. Both are artists from Manizale and wonder about their origin.
They are two friends who got together to make music with a third, whose childhood also occurred in the Caldense capital, Camilo Bartelsman. This interview is crossed by his songs and memories. As well as for his return to the city.
This conversation was going to be only with Laura, but it expanded like the process of the soloist who is no longer alone: “I am no longer just The Girl, but The Girl (LM) and El Propio Junte.” Questions that are songs. A conversation accompanied by music.
Leave the river still for me because if not, I won’t respond, leave the hill healthy because the machete blow goes deep. He traced the piece of land, fractured the ravine and left my wound open
Song The rivers
LM: Despite not having grown up in the countryside, I have a fixed relationship with the mountains and rivers. I grew up in the Fátima neighborhood and from the window of my house I saw that mountain and played in a manga. They are landscapes that pass through me.
I sing to you because it engages us and makes us feel responsible for that environment that brings us beautiful things, but when it suffers, it hurts us.
The songs are not only in praise of natural sources, but also from the open wound of our territory.
How to rip my mother’s breast off. How to take my mother’s life
Song Don’t Disappearfragment My mother’s throat
LM: The relationship with my mother has been a permanent construction of sisterhood. Because we are the only women in our family. She is the one who understands me when she menstruates and taught me to know my body.
MV: My dad is a doctor, but he played the piano all his life. That’s where everything comes from and the first approach to music. It is also a relationship with the territory because it is listening to the music that they sang all their lives and the relationship with the navel.
Everything revolves around that scar that means having been born. I dedicate myself to music thanks to my parents. Isa sings thanks to the fact that her mother gave her her song as a gift.
And although they haven’t broken my face into three pieces, let all the police forces go to hell. Because the tomb doesn’t take care of me. My mother takes care of me. And I take care of myself. Or my sisters take care of me.
Song The blues of the tombos
LM: In the midst of searching for myself, I find that there is an organization that goes above me, my people and my people and I think that is my main conflict with authority.
But it is a relationship that must be worked on because we cannot stay in that circle in which we simply reject authority, but rather think about how to transform it.
I don’t want to see a dead tombo and it’s because I understand that it could be my cousin or my brother or my dad. This dehumanization is also very complex. It is an institution that should work differently.
MV: It all depends on how you analyze and read the songs. You can say that something is being criticized, but also that it is a contrast to say: “Look, my friends, my sisters, take care of me.” Something beautiful comes out of that situation: care.
Nice luck to come across us. Blessed companions of good revolutions. Come on, let’s put our noses together and drink happily because we’re going to sing
Song marijuana ranchera
LM: Friendship has been fundamental. He has made this community possible and work. That collectivity is the process of everything. Before I was just The Girl and now I am The Girl and the Gathering Himself.
MV: Friendly relationships are the deepest factor that helps us survive. I have known Isa since we both lived in Manizales and now we have arrived in a city (Bogotá) where relationships are tougher and from that place a beautiful community has been created. That determined the Board itself.
Whenever it is for me to die. In the land where I came from…
Song Face
LM: The relationship with Manizales is a beautiful thing energetically. In this case, life brought us together with people from the same land. It is the earth calling, taking charge of gathering its children.
Something that connects me a lot with the city is the snow. I miss its landscape. I want to return, not only to sing, but to live here. It is very difficult to produce independently and in fact, this is a project and a gift that we give to the city.
MV: Talking about Manizales is talking about the navel. Doing the concert here makes the project make more sense. It’s coming home.
The relationship with the city is one of longing to return to. That feeling of missing the mountains, the rivers, the family.
I look inside and wonder about my navel. I’ve been searching for a while…
Song The navels
LM: Álvaro Cardona, documentary filmmaker from Manizales, talks about navel. That is, sowing the little piece that remains of one’s navel at birth in the earth or in a tree. Since I didn’t have that possibility, I asked myself about my navel.
And it means being rooted in Manizales. I discovered that I have many navels: my friends, my family, my songs, my guitar, my dog, my boyfriend. It is an expansion of the origin. Then El Propio Junte, Migue and Cami appeared, who are my winged navel.
MV: The song that gives the album its name is a landscape open to discovery. Navels were at first a question and now a result that has generated resonance in people and in ourselves. They are doubts about the origin. Understand that we all have a lot of threads and roots.
Attend a concert
The La Muchacha y el Propio Junte concert is the beginning of a tour that includes cities in Europe and the United States.
The direction and production of the concert is in charge of Popup Art, by Vanessa Severino, and the Caonabó Cultura Corporation, by Juan Manuel Ocampo, cultural projects of Manizaleños. The local group Tambor Hembra also performs at the concert.
