On Saturday 7th September, the penultimate evening of the fortnight-long annual Festival of The Virgin Of Los Remedios, held in Yaiza on Lanzarote, presented two special events on the town square in front of the beautiful church, and the Casa De Cultura in the courtyard.
The previous two weeks of culture, folklore, tradition and marches had opened on August 30 with the opening speech of the teacher María Dolores Rodríguez.
Her speech opened a two week fiesta that served generous portions of culture, folklore and celebrations, and these portions were enriched by a programme of celebrations in honour of the Virgin of Los Remedios, with a festival agenda that was a mixture of tradition and fun open to the enjoyment of residents and tourists and other visitors.
Yaiza even reserved space for poetry with two great local writers and poets: Jaime Quesada and Manuel Concepción, protagonists of the poetic ‘Mano a mano’ event on September 7th.
The reading began at 8.00 pm as advertised and was a masterpiece of timed oratory, with even a little choreography evident as the two poets and their interviewer made frequent movements out of their on-stage armchairs to the podium to make their points. They were of course excellent poets and the rhyming schemes were so carefully crafted and deliberately emphasised that even we who do not speak enough Spanish to have fully captured the ´meaning´ of this poetry, specially written for the occasion, were in no doubt that these poets were making gentle jibes at one another.
Their work was presenting poetry as a story narrative, telling the story of Los Remedios whilst at the same time pointing out poetry’s importance and obligation as a reliable narrator. It was all good fun and held a full-house audience of around 150 in utter silence apart from appreciative applause at the end of each reading.
I have always marvelled at how well Lanzarote fits arts and entertainment into even its most sacred celebrations, and that was certainly the case again tonight.
All the ladies in the audience looked colourful and glamorous in what I call ´nonchalant chic´ and the men, whilst not suited and booted, were nevertheless appropriately attired in ´smart casual´.
The reading finished at 7.45pm which allowed us time to wander across the courtyard and as we approached the arena in front of the stage we saw that 798 seats were already occupied of the original 800 that had been laid out in anticipation of a good-sized audience for the free-till-full concert. We jumped on those last two seats in a rush, as if we were playing a very competitive game of musical chairs. Within a minute or so we were sitting comfortably and with no sense of shame or guilt, as another 500 seats were immediately being laid out by stewards behind us.
The soft lighting hanging in the trees and the brighter lights from the coco cola stands the crepe bars out on the car park lent all sorts of shadows and silhouettes, as people queued for food before the concert began.
Olga’s band, the seven piece Mestisay took to their floor spots, picked up their instruments and played her on to the floor to stand centre stage, and the audience erupted.
We saw Olga and this line up perform in 2019 (five years ago !) at the Cesar Manrique Festival in Arrecife and had been incredibly impressed.
In those few minutes the audience seemed to have increased exponentially to a total of over a 1,000 people and many had congregated in front of the stage as Olga commenced her first song, an obvious fans-favourite that immediately had loyal friends and front row dancers singing and clapping along.
Her voice can be soft and girlish as well as lived-in and mature. She is an energetic stage performer, and an empathetic communicator with her audience. She sings romantic songs with a passion, and sings popular songs with obvious pleasure.
She is also funny and generous with her musicians.
The seven piece band consisted of three stringed instruments, percussion, brass and wind instruments, as well as the ´trumpeto´ played by the gentleman who seemed to be unobtrusively directing this mini orchestra. In fact, so full was the sound, it could have been a full symphony orchestra. It was, of course fusion music of the very best kind, a wonderful non-hierarchical merging of sounds picked up by travelling musicians with an ear for what works well together.
It was neither rock nor folk-lore but was simply well-arranged music brilliantly delivered. Instruments came between vocal verses playing together blending Canarian music with influences from Africa and Europe, sometimes even carrying echoes of songs like Dancing On The Ceiling by Lionel Richie.
Olga and the band crammed over twenty songs into this show that also boasted a superb filmic backdrop with photographs old and new of important people and places throughout The Canary Islands. Most of the women in the audience danced and shimmied but that was great because as the song says, You’ve Got To Dance Like Nobody’s Watching.
Olga Cerpa and Mestisay were brought back for a number of encores, but scheduled to start at 11.00 pm there was a DJ led Throng Of Blowtown (Studio 54) style event that we thought we were probably about seventy five years too old for.
So we set off home (12 miles south to Playa Blanca) and then realised that, of course, all the roads through town were still closed. We had to drive at slightly slower than walking pace along unlit sidetracks and detours searching for diversion signs that would enable us to wind our way, snake-like, to join the LZ 2, at a point about 12 miles north ! Still, we then made swift progress back home on the motorway, and our five cats were waiting for us on the patio when we arrived home, asking ´what time do you call this?´
As we sat with Clinger, Little Black Cat, Rollover, Stray and Pretty But Thick on our knees on our garden furniture, we spoke to them of poetry and music and arts, and religion and families and politics and why life here on Lanzarote so much appeals. But sometimes when our Spanish cats want us to be quiet they just pretend they can’t speak English.
