Hispanic Heritage Month

Antonio Gades’ last choreographed work, Fuenteovejuna, is a signature piece of purity and precision of Spanish dance. Based on a true event that inspired Lope de Vega to write this classic play in 1619, Fuenteovejuna is about the people of a village in Córdoba ruled by a tyrannical commander whose actions of droit de seigneur, violence and abuse engender their intense hatred. Until one day, encouraged by their women, the villagers choose freedom and, armed with farming implements, they take the law into their own hands. When the villagers are interrogated by a magistrate sent by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella to establish who was responsible, no one admits to having done anything, each inhabitant only saying “I.” In other words, “Fuente Ovejuna did it.” First performed in 1994 in Genoa, Fuenteovejuna is considered as the ultimate work of Spanish dance. Gades highlights the enormous richness of flamenco and the folklore. The stylised Spanish dance and flamenco serve as a universal story to perfectly tell the story of solidarity.

2006 closed with a spectacular festival of Argentinean music broadcast live from Buenos Aires. At the height of the Argentinean summer, the Orquesta Filarmónica del Teatro Colon under Daniel Barenboim (conductor & soloist) join bandoneon virtuoso Leopoldo Federico and his Orquesta Tipica for an extraordinary New Year’s Eve show with popular tangos and Latin American orchestra classics. The old master of tango, José Carli, created enchanting new arrangements of works by Argentinean artists Astor Piazzolla, Carlos Gardel, Julio de Caro, Alberto Ginastera and Horacio Salgán. Performances by leading tango dancers Mora Godoy and Junior Cervilla from Buenos Aires add atmosphere and round off the night.

El Sistema is a network of children’s and youth orchestras, music centres and workshops in Venezuela, in which more than 250,000 children and young people are currently learning to play an instrument. It was set up over thirty years ago by José Antonio Abreu, who was driven by a utopian vision of a better future. El Sistema’s story, which has all the makings of a fairy tale, is the extraordinary account of a vision that has become reality. Several of El Sistema’s young graduates now rank amongst the most coveted young talent in Europe – the most prominent being the conductor Gustavo Dudamel. The documentary ‘El Sistema’ shows how Abreu’s astonishing ideas have led the way out of the vicious circle of poverty and how the power of music has been able to change the lives of hundreds of thousands of young people. The film shows the gripping way El Sistema functions on a daily basis in a typical nucléo: the La Rinconada nucléo is located next to the barrio of the same name. The area around the nucléo is considered one of the poorest and most dangerous areas in Caracas. Up to 300 children find their daily destination here.