By José Gandue @Gandour
From September 13th to 17th, Bogotá will experience the most intense days of the year's musical calendar. It's curious how the Bogotá Music Market (Bomm), the Hermoso Ruido Festival, and an event that has been gaining momentum and attracting more and more fans to its stages came together: The Yaveria Festival. This exhibition of diverse arts is now in its sixth edition, concentrating activities in the Quinta Camacho neighborhood., one of the areas with the greatest cultural intensity in the Colombian capital. To find out what will happen this year, we contacted one of its organizers, Santiago Ayerbe, to ask him the relevant questions:
What is the Yaveria festival about?
It's a space we opened in 2009 with some friends to present our projects. The festival has grown over time. and now it seeks to be a platform for mutual support, where different works, ideas, and artistic projects can be exhibited. We seek to network, connecting with more people, more spaces, and more expressions , to expand the range of products and services offered to the public.
What kind of art do they exhibit during the festival?
We have proposals for visual arts, audiovisual arts, performing arts and music.
In terms of the music, how did you approach the curation?
We aim to avoid limiting ourselves to one or a few specific styles. We are interested in enriching our offerings by giving audiences opportunities to discover new things., to exchange audiences between bands and open space for innovative projects, We find it enriching to have emerging artists share the stage with established groups. to be able to have guest bands that haven't played together in a whileI hope they want to reopen the stage to their old fans. Also, to be able to propose international guests who, otherwise, would be very difficult to see live., knowing that there may be an audience here interested in meeting them. The curation aims to be eclectic, but also respectful of the sizes of the spaces and stages we have available, the dates, and understanding that An energy curve must be managed in the programming of each night.
If someone asked you for a brief definition of the musical aspect, how would you describe Yaveria?
Varied, emergent and with potential.
Have you realized how hectic the week of your event is going to be? I mean, it will probably be the busiest days of the contemporary music calendar in Bogotá.
Yes, we We've been doing it for 3 years during Bomm week. It's a great opportunity, especially for bands, who take advantage of it to promote their projects. This undoubtedly increases the supply, Everywhere you look, independent concerts, bars in their programming, and festivals are taking advantage of these dates. The ones who have it the hardest here are the public., They have to choose, but without a doubt, they're not going to stay home this week.
How does Yaveria sustain itself?
From previous editions The effort is to avoid incurring debt on the part of those of us who organize it. Our investment represents almost three months of work, dedicated to planning and production. This is perhaps our main contribution to the platform, so that This will give it weight in the media, the buyers, promoters and it can serve the bands who, for their part, contribute with their incredible projects. Yavería's model is one of mutual support, among all of us who are part of it. The ideal is to reach a point of equilibrium and reinvest in continuously improving the experience. Yavería is sustained thanks to everyone's work And, essentially, thanks to the audience.
Now, considering the difficult question of your personal taste, which artists do you most recommend we see within the festival's program?
– Good day, one of my favorites.
– Alfredo de la Fé y Melao, A salsa genius with a new project alongside B-Clip
– François Peglau,from Peru
– The Leopard, Daniel Broderick's new project.
– Feralucia, from Medellín
Any final recommendations for getting the most out of the Yaveria experience?
This year We are forming an alliance with the Fanny Mikey National Theatre And we'll have a parallel program of micro-theater and discounts on the Theater's programming, so it's worth arriving early, checking out the exhibitions, and going to the theater. and end up listening to good music.
