A Solas begins ...

A Solas has begun!

The workshops had already had their first session on Tuesday morning before the official opening, attended by many local journalists and featuring a welcome from festival director Amarantha Osario and an improvisation by the festival artists. This was followed by the traditional opening round (pictured below) where artists and participants from Albania to Japan as well as the Spanish-speaking world introduced themselves.

After the round the first conversation was between Jill Greenhalgh, Violeta Luna and Rocio Solís, speaking about their personal artistic strategies to overcome the various difficulties and obstacles that we all face in trying to create our work.

The first performance was a work-in-progress presenation by Basque musician Ainara LeGardon, who improvised using sounds from the hiss of speakers and microphone feedback to her voice, body and ambient sound in the room. Music and dance continued to be the theme for the evening programme: dance from L'Explose (Colombia), a cello and flamenco interlude, and Voix Polyphonique closing the evening with their beautiful Chants de mer noir.

Earlier in the day, Maria Porter and I had managed a quick sightseeing trip into the city; we were very excited to see the eye-catching A Solas posters prominently displayed in the metro stations.

Now we are onto the second day: talks, work-in-progress, and this evening the programme includes two performances from Projecte Vaca from Colombia and the audio-visual performance installation El Espejo Cambiante by Nomad Teatro (Serbia/Spain).