Filed under: Architecture, Art, Culture, Dance, Spain, Travels, Uncategorized | Tags: Exhibits Madrid, La Gran Via, La Noche en Blanco, Legazpi, Madrid, Matadero, Plaza Cibeles, Price Theatre, September 19th
Wow! Saturday night in Madrid was unbelievable!! Thousands of people went out that night to enjoy everything the city had to offer.
First we went to the Price Theatre, to watch a modern circus performance with contemporary music played by a DJ. The act was about the different stages in a couple’s relationship. During one part, the actors played a scene from Grease, it was awesome!!
At 1 am, we headed to Legazpi, where Matadero is located. Matadero is an old slaughterhouse that has been turned into a contemporary art centre. The building is one of the most beautiful representations of the industrial style of the XX century. This place has been recovered by Madrid´s City Hall to promote cultural and artistic initiatives. http://www.mataderomadrid.com/
During La Noche en Blanco, the Matadero building was full of different exhibitions, live music, theatre, dancing, and many other activities. There was a hallway that had been burnt a while back, and was simulating a fire. It looked very cool as the hallway maintained its black walls and burnt look.
There was also an exhibition about traveling. We were given suitcases to decorate and were encouraged to paste paper notes on the wall about who we’d take with us to travel. The most common notes said “the people we love”, or “friends and family”, of course!!
Later that night, we went to one of the most emblematic streets in Madrid, La Gran Via. For this special night, the wonderful buildings of the XIX century were illuminated with lights of different colors.
La Gran Via leads out into the Cibeles Square where the party continued with a live music stage, lights and thousands of people dancing. The old Post building, which has been converted into City Hall, was a silent witness to the night and the magic of the environment.
I went home at 4.30 am, feeling exhausted and exuberant! I can’t wait for next year’s edition!!
-Rocio
Filed under: Art, Culture, Dance, Spain | Tags: Art, Arts and Culture, Free Entertainment, Hip Hop, La Noche en Blanco, Madrid, Museum, Music, Prado, Spain Arts and Culture, Thyssen
This weekend is one of the most exciting ones in Madrid. Tonight is “The Night in White”, a night when the entire city becomes a big stage with nearly 200 different, exciting performances taking place throughout the city.
This festival is also celebrated in other European cities like Paris and Rome, with the theme of “the present”, as the representation of giving art for free, a very nice initiative in this economic situation.
Many museums, like the Thyssen and the Prado, will be open until 3 am. If you ever wanted to learn how to dance hip hop, dance music or the classics, now you have your chance, dancing students will be teaching their art in different stages throughout the city. There will also be light installations, photography, paint and sculpture exhibitions outside the museums. Live music concerts, street performances, special environmentally friendly displays in parks and gardens of the city, audiovisual and cinema showings, poetry and many other activities that make the night a dream for culture and art lovers.
"Remixbuildings-bloodshushibank" it´s a initiative where if you donate blood you get a shushi meal as an exchange
I´m still planning out my night. There are so many activities happening, I don’t know what to do!!! Here is the web site with all the info about it.
http://lanocheenblanco.esmadrid.com/lanocheenblanco/en/index
I´ll tell you all about it in the next post!!
-Rocio
Filed under: Culture, Dance, Family, Spain, Travels | Tags: Cadiz, El Puerto de Santa Maria, Osborne Sherry, Paddle, Puerto Sherry Hotel, Summer Travels in Spain
The last days of my vacation I went to El Puerto de Santa María, in Cádiz, the town where I grew up and where my family settled in 1772. August is a very busy time here, with the population growing from 80.000 to half a million. This is the kind of place where people come only to vacation during the summer, so you meet people that you only see during this time of the year.
During these days I enjoyed my family and friends, went to the beach and played a lot of sports, mostly Paddle. This is a variation of tennis played with four persons, a rubber racket, and a smaller court. The rules are very similar to tennis, but the main difference is that you can use the walls as well, which are made either of concrete or glass. Here is a video of a very exciting part of a match, I wish I could play this good!! I’ll try to post a video in the future of my friends and I playing, believe me, it wont be as exciting as this but sure much more fun, in a much more clumsy way of course!!
At night, my friends and I hung out on this terrific new terrace on the roof of the Puerto Sherry Hotel that is just by the sea. We had some great nights! Here are some pictures!!
Puerto Sherry Terrace
Puerto Sherry
Hasta Pronto!
- Rocio
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Filed under: Dance, Spain, Travels, Wine | Tags: Botero, Haro, La Rioja Wine, Soaked, Spain Culture, Spanish Tradition
The Battle of Wine in Haro (La Rioja)
This Monday, June 29th, was the Battle of Wine, La Batalla del Vino, in the village of Haro in Rioja, and though I didn’t go, I want to share with you this fun and crazy Spanish tradition.
Each year, people from Haro, and nowadays people from all over the world, get together on a hilltop called Riscos de Bilibios (6 km from Haro) to commemorate a battle that happened here a long time ago with neighboring village Miranda del Ebro. This tradition has taken place since the beginning of the last century.
On the morning of the 29th, there is a mass in a small, old church, and then the wine battle begins… People in white clothes show up with plastic jugs of red wine, botas (leather bags filled with wine), or other ‘weapons’ that hold wine, and squirt and splash each other until everyone is soaked and purple.
Luckily they don’t use Crianza, Reserva or Gran Reserva wines!! Just young wine from that year’s vintage and mostly bulk wine.
Here’s a video that shows exactly what I’m talking about:
Afterward, everyone returns to town and gathers around the plaza de la Paz where the festivities continue and purple, sticky people dance, sing, eat and drink.
If you’re ever in Rioja around this time of the year, and you love wine, this is the place for you.
Hasta mañana!!
Rocio
Filed under: Dance, Spain | Tags: Festivities, Fire, Night of San Juan, San Juan, Spain Culture, Spirits, Valencia
Yesterday evening was the Night of San Juan, a very special night in many regions of Spain. The Night of San Juan has different meanings in each region, for example, in Galicia where people are very superstitious, they see this special night as a ritual for getting rid of bad spirits. In general, it’s a celebration of the summer solstice which coincides with the shortest night and longest day of the year. Fire is traditionally common in each region’s celebrations.
Jumping over a fire during San Juan's night
The most popular festivities take place in Alicante, Valencia, where people light hundreds of fires along the beach and eat, drink and dance around the fire. As part of tradition, people jump over the fire for good luck, and to get rid of the bad luck.
During this time, people participate in many activities, like parades, concerts, sports competitions, etc.
Valencia's Mayor next to a ninot of her
San Juan’s festivities end today with the burning of the ninots, satirical statues made of wood and cardboard usually depicting political figures, celebrities, etc. As the sun goes down, the celebration ends with a bunch of fireworks. It’s awesome!!
Hasta mañana!!
Rocio
Last night I was very lucky to be invited to a Sara Baras show. She is a very well known flamenco dancer in Spain, and in fact, to me, she is the best.
Here is what The Independent says about her: “When God was handing out talents, he must have tripped when he reached Sara Baras and dropped the lot into her lap. Not only did she grow up to become, by her mid-30s, the almost-undisputed flamenco queen of her generation (for such a matter to be settled would mean that flamenco wasn’t the hot, happening force it now is in Spain), but she also runs her own troupe, choreographs her own shows, lights them, directs them and designs the fabulous threads she stands up in. In short, Baras is phenomenal.
Still as sleek and fierce as a lynx, she has doubled in authority since her last visit, surrendering herself even more to that dark force the Spanish call duende. Suddenly, it ceases to be about entertainment. It’s the stuff of life itself: anger, frustration, surprise, roof-lifting joy and more. As Baras turboes the full width of the stage in a heel-drilling moonwalk, her controlled diminuendo seems to challenge the Earth to stop spinning.”
Her show “Carmen” is a personal rendition of the Prosper Mérimée novel later made famous by Bizet’s opera. It is a drama about two men in love with the same woman… perhaps now a cliché, but the passion and emotions expressed by Sara’s movements, the music (just instrumental) and the other characters, made me believe I was part of the story, so much so it made me cry.
Carmen is a powerful figure in Spanish popular culture. Mérimée wrote his novel and created this character after one of his several trips to Spain in the middle of the 19th century (a very rough time in Spain). Carmen embodies strength, sensuality, and brazenness… a very different female character to what people were used to seeing in operas at the time.
Sunday is the final show in Madrid after several months of success, but if you ever have the chance to see any of Sara Baras’s shows, don’t miss the chance, they are unbelievable!!
Rocio
