American college students have Thirsty Thursdays. Here in La Plata, we do too- just with a little more class.
Our typical tradition is to go out to La Salamanca, a bar that has live folkloric music ever Thursday night. This music is traditional from the north of Argentina and Bolivia. From the beginning I've been astounded by the beautiful and passionate music, the proud and sensual dancing, and the delicious empanadas that La Salamanca has to offer. We go almost every Thursday, and by this point have made friends with the waiters and become competent at the dance called la chacarera.
Here is a (somewhat poor quality) example of a band we might see. This is a samba, which is a bit beyond my skill level to dance.
This is an examble of the chacarera, which I do know how to dance (although not quite this gracefully). This is also probably my favorite song; "déjame que me vaya, y que con ella muere" - let me leave, let me die with her. It's so sad and passionate.
Last night, however, we broke with tradition and went to a cultural center to see a Colombian band play. Luckily, before and after this band folkloric bands played, so we still got a chance to dance plenty of chacareras and then some Colombian cumbia - which left me totally exhausted as the general idea is to move your body as fast as you possibly can.
We also got to see a traditional and very impressive type of percussionist: boleadora. He swings two heavy, potentially deadly balls around on ropes and combines the sound of them hitting the floor with his own steps to make an mind-numbingly fast and intricate rhythm. Just watching it was exhilarating. Here's an example:
And last but not least, here is De la tierrita, the Colombian band, performing here in La Plata this weekend. I hope you enjoy this sampling of the various and wonderful music that we enjoy here. I also hope you appreciate my waking up to write this blog post after I had been out until 5 am dancing cumbia.
Note: Here's a link to De la Tierrita's myspace page if you want to listen to more of their songs: http://www.myspace.com/delatierrita
It's so great to see that someone appreciates our culture, and even more than we do!
ReplyDeleteYou do know that "boleadoras" are traditional indian weapons, don't you?
Hope you keep enyoing this much!
Ana Paula (I'm Simon's friend ;)
Those boleadoras would leave an awfully big goose egg on someone's head in the event of a mishap...
ReplyDeleteI loved the music and dancing- really beautiful! I like that you've brought in video- very high tech!!
I also love to appreciate different cultures!
ReplyDeleteLast year I've been in one of the apartments for rent in Buenos Aires and had a great time!