Madrid snippets
La Cañada.
If ever you wanted a traditional Madrileño lunch then go to this restaurant. I had the leg of lamb. That is, the entire leg of a baby lamb ... yum yum. I had this the last time I was here and it was equally delicious. A great setting on the outskirts of Madrid, looking over the mountains (although, curiously, next door to a dog kennel, so you can watch dogs fighting with each other while you eat).
La Cañada Restaurante.
Ctra Nacional M-501 km. 2,5
28669 Boadilla del Monte
www.grupowamba.com
De La Guarda. www.delaguarda.com (this is not a review).
After La Cañada I went with several others to see this performance. Take a look at their website to see the details. It was a good performance, but it lacked something. A couple of months ago I saw a performance in London, at Sadlers Wells, of a French circus act (can´t remember the name, sorry). (I´m sure this type of physical performace has a name, but I don´t know what it is). The French act had precision and skill and left me in awe. The De La Guarda performance was a similar physical act but without the precision. There was lots of noise and lighting effects and water (more on that in a second) with performers in the audience the whole time ... but it lacked something of the precision and skill that would separate these performers from anyone else young and fit who´d practiced the moves for a few weeks.
The audience stood the whole time in a space like a hall. The performers swung above or cut through the crowd for the entire performance. The level of audience participation was high (so if you don´t like this then don´t see this show!) However sometimes to a gratuitous level.
The water. Water played an integral part to the performance. The opening of the show the performers acted above a separation of paper on the ceiling. The audience stood below it looking up so that all we could see were the shadows on the paper. A sequence whereby luminous paint was splattered on the paper from above, then the lights turned off so that the entire ceiling looked like a night sky of stars was especially effective. They then waved this and it was as if the audience was under the water, with the suface of the water the paper. It was a most effective illusion. The performers gradually broke through the paper and so began the show in ernest.
I won´t describe the show in detail (look at their website or a full review for details) but at one point water was introduced in the form of showers in the ceiling raining down upon the audience. I suddenly found myself drenched under a steady shower (imagine being in the shower, happily soaping yourself, but it´s a great big shower head and you´ve got it turned up full blast and there´s a plenitude of water in your area... anyway, that´s what this shower was like). I imagined that the entire audience was getting this so I didn´t move until I realised, actually this shower is localised to this area of the audience. It´s only me and my friend beside me getting this drenching. Okay, so this did dampen (ho ho) my enthusiasm for about five minutes, as my entire body was saturated and I felt the water dribbling down my pants. However after five minutes I got over it, as people were plucked from the crowd to be lofted into the air by the performers. At one point a woman in a mini skirt was plucked up and the performer holding her lifted her skirt, patting her on the bum. This kind of thing, as well as the water and lots of pushing and shoving from the performers as they moved through the crowd I thought was slightly gratuitous at points. I understand that there´s this desire to make the audience part of the performance and get people out of the comfort zone and all that (I´m sure there´s lots more to it than this, but this is not a review) but it seemed a bit forced at times.
There was a point where the audience was being encouraged to dance to a trance-like tune. In the space, with the lighting and the decor, I could have been in a club. In fact, had it been a club or a rave I would have felt right at home and been dancing like a posessed banshee. But it wasn´t and I felt straight and the audience (most of it, looking at the middle aged and the kids and others who where there) didn´t know this milleau. This is where it felt forced as well. If I want to go to a club then that´s where I´ll go. If I´d had this performance at a club, with the water etc, then I probably would have absolutely loved it: but in that circumstance I would be in a competely different frame of mind and be expecting the outrageousness. Maybe that´s it - what I expected (and I didn´t expect to be drenched!)
It was a good show. I just wish it had been better, and that I hadn´t been the schmuck under the shower. Several bars later (after the show) I´d finally dried off. But not before I´d contributed to the cold I´m now sharing with the rest of the world.
En fin...
Towards the end of the evening we headed up to Puerta del Sol, in the middle of the city, to watch the practice countdown to midnight. It was the evening of the 30th, and for reasons which escape me as an extranjero, the Spanish have a practice countdown 24 hours prior to the real countdown. The seconds before midnight are counted down, people popping their grapes, as if it were the real thing. And then everyone shouting happy new year, and 2006 being displayed on the building and me thinking: but it´s 24 hours too early! But it´s not for me to understand. It was a laugh and fun and a good atmosphere in the air. And it gave Spanish youth another chance to let off some loud fire-crackers which they love so much, so maybe that´s why.
posted by sapient iguana at 12:17
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