Tabakalera taulara : kontzertua = Tabakalera taulara : concierto = Tabakalera taulara : concert

Performing arts summer programme in the attic

This summer, Thursdays on the Attic are going to be devoted to enjoying performing arts. From 7 July to 8 September (+ 11 September), each Thursday there’ll be a chance to get to know and participate in the different projects of performing arts, performance pieces and stageable projects.

Altogether, there’ll be eleven offerings by Javier Vaquero, Cris Blanco, Amaia Urra, Lorena Álvarez, Quim Pujol, Idoia Zabaleta & Ibon Salvador & Mónica Real, Bárbara Sánchez & Jaime Conde-Salazar, Óscar Bueno & Itxaso Corral, Itsaso Iribarren & Germán de la Riva, Nilo Gallego & Pelayo Arrizabalaga and Isaak Erdoiza.

It’ll be the summer so it will probably be hot, but not too hot. We'll head up to the rooftop on the fourth floor, by stairs or in the lift. There'll be people we know and others we don't. Things will kick off at half past eight in the evening, when the sun is just about to set and it’s starting to get a bit cooler. We'll arrive by day and leave by night. And there will be one or more people doing things, singing, dancing, talking, playing an instrument, telling us things, changing, moving… We'll sit down and enjoy ourselves for a while on the roof watching and listening to things that don't usually happen on a roof.

Maia Villot

They say that our human ancestors' first musical compositions involved reproducing of natural sounds using manufactured devices. A peal of thunder, the flowing of a river or the cawing of a bird. Everyone understood it because it appealed to something they had already heard, sounds that shocked, delighted or just disturbed them. The traditional aspect of Lorena Álvarez is not the reproduction of a specific folklore, but the capacity to share that essence of the natural from her songs through contemporary forms.

Following the release of La Cinta (Sones, 2011), her first LP  Anónimo (Sones, 2012) and the EP Dinamita (Producciones Doradas, 2014) she has managed to go beyond the common limits of traditional music to a new context in which contemporaneity and tradition can go hand in hand without complexes, where town and city come together, travelling paths that until now had become overgrown.

Her songs mix traditional instruments and sounds with airs that are closer to contemporary pop. In them she tells common stories, and for this reason her discs and concerts trap, entertain and move young and old alike, who see in her music a sincere reference to the small dramas and joys that make up our lives. Cunning, shrewdness, humour and simplicity for a new collection of popular songs, so sorely needed.