Concert featuring Luís Rebaza-Soraluz
Dr Luís Rebaza-Soraluz, Senior Lecturer in Latin American Cultural Studies in the Department of Spanish, Portuguese & Latin American Studies recently took part in an event hosted by St Ethelburga’s Centre for Reconciliation and Peace which seeks ‘to help people build relationships across divisions of conflict, culture and religion’.
St Ethelburga’s projects include the exploration of cultural practices, such as narrative and stories, in order to enable people to experience artistic expressions from areas of conflict. As part of this year’s concert series, they decided to ‘Explore the depth of Peruvian culture’ and invite the musical group ‘Malambo’ as well as Luís Rebaza-Soraluz.
While ‘Malambo’ offered a selection of samples of Peruvian Coastal music of African origins, Luís Rebaza-Soraluz read one of his short stories and also selected stanzas of Peruvian Poet Javier Sologuren’s capital piece ‘La Hora’ (1982), in translation into English by Elizabeth Doonan. The works of both writers, exploring different spheres of Peru’s difficult recent history, address fear, hope, the passage of time and situations in which people find themselves trapped between antagonistic positions.
The recording includes the host’s introduction, Luís Rebaza-Soraluz’ reading of his story — ‘Tumbes’: an 18-hour trip, between Lima and Tumbes (Peru’s foremost northern city) on a truck transporting explosives through a country riddled by terrorist activity — and a number of musical pieces. His story is preceded by a short explanation of the relevance of the text. Unfortunately, the recording does not include his reading of Sologuren’s poem. https://soundcloud.com/malambomusic/sets/st-ethelburgas