Musical Interlude 2

Partitura 001 from Quayola on Vimeo.

   I need a break from all this political stuff so here’s a musical interlude with a visual component based on a computer generated three dimensional images. Nice and relaxing. (I didn’t see any copy write notices on the website so I think that it’s ok. Can’t be too careful with S928 coming!) From the website:

   Quayola is a visual artist based in London. He investigates dialogues and the unpredictable collisions, tensions and equilibriums between the real and artificial, the figurative and abstract, the old and new. His work explores photography, geometry, time-based digital sculptures and immersive audiovisual installations and performances.

  Partitura is a custom software built in vvvv to generate real time graphics aimed at visualizing sound. The term “Partitura” (score) implies a connection with music, and this metaphor is the main focus of the project. Partitura aims to create a new system for translating sound into visual forms. Inspired by the studies of artists such as Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Oscar Fischinger and Norman McLaren, the images generated by Partitura are based on a precise and coherent system of relationships between various types of geometries. The main characteristic of this system is its horizontal linear structure, like that of a musical score. It is along this linear environment that the different classes of abstract elements are created and evolve over time according to the sound. Partitura creates endless ever-evolving abstract landscapes that can respond to musical structures, audio analysis and manual gestural inputs. It is an instrument that visualizes sound with both the freedom of spontaneous personal interpretation/improvisation and at the same time maintaining the automations and triggers of mathematical precision.

Corazón de México (5)

   This post is for all the odds and ends that I didn’t have space to put in the other sections of the Mexican festival. In the evening, they had a mariachi band. It was too dark for good photography but I did find a video of the group playing.

In 1987, Jorge Lopez was invited to participate in the recording of Linda Ronstadt's Las Canciones de mi Padre. In working with the greatest mariachi band of all time, Mariachi Vargas, Jorge had the idea of forming his own mariachi band, due to the lack of authentic representation of mariachi music in Canada at the time. In 1988, Jorge began training musicians in traditional Mexican folk music. This gave birth to Mariachi Mexico Amigo. Since then, they have evolved into a professional working ensemble, eager to bring Mexico's native music to the public.  

Mariachi Mexico Amigo, like the great city of Toronto, consists of a diverse mix of international cultures. Jorge is particularly proud of the fact that, although the band members come from all over the world, they respect and do their best to preserve the traditional style and sound of Mexico's great mariachi music. Jorge is just as proud of his son Joao's long standing participation in the band and his assistance in making sure the music is true to its roots.

Viva Mexico Mariachi has become one of the most important exponents of Mexican music and traditions in the multicultural city of Toronto. Their music contributes to solidify the group’s reputation, motivated by the desire to continue offering a taste of Mexico’s musical legacy beyond its frontier.

  Finally they had a Mexican movie, "Santo el enmascarado de plata y Blue Demon contra los monstruos(1970)"

Two nights of films featuring the greatest Lucha Libre (Mexican Free Wresting) artists of all time: El Santo and Blue Demon!

 
When masked wrestlers/superheroes Blue Demon (El Demonio Azul) and El Santo aren’t kicking booty in the ring, they’re investigating weird phenomena, hunting monsters and saving hapless souls from the likes of killer zombies, lecherous vampires and wacky mad doctors!

Hip Hop drummers

  I’ve long been a fan of Taiko (太鼓) or Japanese drumming and have seen the Kodo drummers, a very famous Japanese group when they were in Toronto. This group of hip hop drummers is also special as you can see from the video.

Nouveauté zouk

Now let’s have a musical interlude with Nouveauté zouk. From Wikipedia:

Zouk is a style of rhythmic music originating from the Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique. Zouk means "party" or "festival" in the local Antillean Creole of French, although the word originally referred to, and is still used to refer to, a popular dance, based on the Polish dance, the mazurka, that was introduced to the French Caribbean in the 19th Century. In Africa, it is popular in franco- and lusophone countries. In Europe it is particularly popular in France, and in North America the Canadian province of Quebec.

Maybe Clarissa and Zero have heard about it but I doubt anyone else. ”Ethnomusicologist Jocelyn Guilbault, however, describes zouk as a synthesis of Caribbean popular styles, especially Dominica cadence-lypso, Guadeloupean biguine, and Haitian compas” which is another excerpt from Wikipedia since there is no other information on the web. I came across it in one of my cross cultural perambulations investigating another matter. Nouveauté zouk is a recent metamorphosis of the traditional zouk where modern Rock is stylistically incorporated.