Dance, music, art fill Medellín streets as DanzaMed kicks off
Medellín, Colombia, Dec 16 (EFE).- Folkloric and contemporary dance, new body languages and urban dances filled the streets of Medellín on Thursday as the DanzaMed festival kicked off.
The fifth edition of the event opened with a break-dance performance among the voluptuous sculptures by Colombian artist Fernando Botero.
“In Medellín we are moved by dance, with groups that take over the public space,” Secretary of Citizen Culture Álvaro Narváez said.
For three days the city will also host experimental processes, aerial dance and workshops, activities that “will allow us to experience dance and movement,” he added.
A group aged between 50 and 80 years from Cultura Viva, a dance group for older people, gave the public a glimpse of various Colombian rhythms.
“Folklore is generally sidelined because we have new artistic trends, but the older people are responsible for promoting and showing the tradition,” Luisa Delia Sánchez, one of the dancers, told Efe.
The performance of “Forjadoras de Historia” (Forgers of History) by the Kaleidoscopio Danza company drew people, through song and dance, into the story of the arrival of women to a “big city” called Medellín, where they settled down to build new lives.
Claudia Vera, the founder of the company, said that “it is not only dance for dance’s sake,” but a “mediation between the processes of impressions, identity and empathy,” by evoking peasants who have had to reach the city because they have been banished, in addition to “resignifying women” through these artistic expressions.
Describing DanzaMed as a “beautiful platform” for Medellín, she said it allowed artists to resume performing and return to stage.
Another highlight of the event was “Gala a Botero” by the Metropolitan Ballet School in Medellín, a work inspired by the life and work of painter Fernando Botero, famous for his paintings and sculptures of exaggerated, voluptuous forms.
A total of 100 artists and 21 local dance groups will take part in the cultural festival, held in open-air venues across the city until Saturday. EFE
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