Ollin Kan highlights world music

BY MARIA GALLUCCI
Special to The News
Monday, April 13, 2009

Mexico City will once again host hundreds of alternative and counterculture musicians from around the globe during the Sixth Ollin Kan International Festival, a concert series running from April 13 to May 10.

This year's festival promotes the music of ethnic minorities living in large European urban centers, highlighting the fusion of cultural traditions with mixed music movements throughout the world.

"Ollin Kan," which means "the place of movement" in Náhuatl, gives voice to global musicians outside the mainstream, commercial music industry, said José Luis Cruz, the festival's general director. He said the concert's concept is similar to the Náhuatl philosophy of cosmic movements creating constant renovation.

"All our [festival] themes are about creation, the open exchanges between groups from all around the world with Mexican musicians," he said.

Organizers of Ollin Kan, which drew around a million concertgoers in 2008, anticipate even more will come this year to see the festival's bigger lineup and wider circulation.The festival will feature 80 Mexican music groups and 115 international groups; the 43 different stages encompass 16 boroughs throughout Mexico City.

Most of the 468 concerts will take place in the city's southern Tlalpan borough. The festival's concept began in Tlalpan and is largely funded by the municipal government there. Larger concert venues include Tlalpan's Centro Histórico, the Conciertódromo, Multiforo Ollin Kan, the Zócalo, Ecatepec, the Olympic Village and the Parque Ecológico Loreto y Peña Pobre.Shows will also play in 19 other cities, including Puebla, Cuernavaca, Morelia, Michoa-cán, and Tapachula, Chiapas. The festival will head south at the end of May to Bogotá and Cartagena, Colombia. It traveled to Portugal and Mali during previous festivals.

"They're fighting to not disappear, to not be marginalized," Cruz said of Ollin Kan's featured musicians. "We represent other views, ones that aren't the views of the commercial market. We're proposing that people understand why these expressions exist and who they're from, what are the contexts, complexities, philosophies and cultural processes."

FOUR WEEKS OF FUSIONS

The 28-day festival is divided into four themes, each one lasting a week. Admission is free across the board - Cruz says it is a citizen's right to freely access new ideas and innovative sounds.The festival features noted and well-traveled musicians from nearly every continent, but Cruz said he views every performance as equally essential to the Ollin Kan philosophy.

"Each concert is a celebration. We're promoting alternative musicians with never-before-seen ideas and audacity," he said. "This distinguishes our festival from the others, because we're not selling anything; everything is an exchange."

The first week, which kicks off April 13, is dedicated to the Netherlands' multicultural community and its varying artistic expressions, including the Amsterdam Klezmer Band; Drums United; Neco Novellas, a Dutch-Mozambique fusion; Mesechinka, a Dutch-Balkan blend; and Beatriz Aguiar, a singer from Uruguay who is living in Amsterdam.

April 20 to 26 will offer a tribute to India, a country the festival says has an enormous wealth of traditions and expressions, both modern and traditional. Artists include Sangeeta; Musafir; Bee 2, an Indian-British mix; and Indialucía, a blend of Indian and Polish sounds.

The third week, starting April 27, features bands representing ethnic minority populations living in London, including contemporary sound movements such as electronic, gypsy, various Latin styles and klezmer, a musical genre that parallels the musical legacies of Hasidic and Ashkenazic Judaism.

May 3 kicks off the festival's final week and biggest celebration. The segment will offer a fusion between African rhythms and their Mexican Caribbean counterparts, including genres like mandenga, jazz and son jarocho, a sound native to Veracruz that combines Spanish, indigenous and African musical traditions.

Featured African artists include, among others, Malians Toumani Diabate, Bassekou Kouyate and Cheick Tidiane Seck. Diabate is known by his performance on the kora, a 21-string harp-lute. Kouyate will play his Ngoni, a West African string instrument made of wood and stretched, dried goatskin. In 2008 the artist received the African Artist of the Year award from the BBC's Awards for World Music.

The fourth week also brings together worldwide cultural resistance movements. Highlighted artists and groups include Marcelo D2, from Brazil; Pibo Márquez, from Venezuela; Rassegna and Annie Ebrel, from France; X Alfonso, from Cuba; and Xosé Manuel Bou-diño, from Spain.

HOMEGROWN ARTISTS

The Ollin Kan festival, albeit an international music forum, also gives ample play to Mexico's own musical movements.The fourth week features tropical music traditions from Mexico's Caribbean side, as well as indigenous Huichol and Chichimeca dance ceremonies, Náhuatl narrations and Huave music.

Mexican artists include Aguas Aguas, Grupo Chéjere and Los Parientes de Playa Vicente, all from Veracruz; Los Arpisteros de Pajapan; Asalto Diario; Barro Rojo; Contempodanza; Los Rayitos del Cerro, from Chihuahua; Fandangueros, from Mexico City; and Leones Negros and Atletas Campesinos, both from Querétaro.

Ollin Kan will also feature Mexican rock groups including La Barranca and Nine Rain. The Aztec-reggae group Rastrillos and electronic-pop group Los Licuadoras will also perform.

This year's festival will close out with a performance by Los de Abajo, converting the concert into a dance hall blasting ska and punk music. Los de Abajo will also touch on sounds including jazz, electronic, reggae, merengue, rap and Balkan polka.

For more information on performance schedules and venue locations, visit www.ollinkan.tlalpan.gob.mx.