One night he heard a recital of ‘glossadors’ singing Majorcan tunes and decided that he would invest his musical capital – he studied at the Oviedo Conservatory and the Esmuc in Barcelona – in bringing the popular to the forefront. Mixing the montera picona with the mesh stockings. The tambourine with electronics. The humor with the political cannon shot (defends the rural and the ‘Asturian’ here and in Dubai). Before performing in Paris and Miami, Rodrigo Cuevas will display its ‘Trópico de Covadonga’ at the Barts (February 24 and 25).
Help us and explain who you are.
That is very difficult. A lady?
According to a somewhat lacking digital, an “Asturian supremacist transformist”.
It is the definition that best fits reality! Asturian transformism and ‘supremacism’ are political attitudes in me. When you see that your culture is being relegated because another engulfs it, in a long process and without you even realizing it, you have to defend it.
Claim the official status of the ‘Asturianu’.
Now it seemed that there was the consensus of 27 deputies to make a new Statute, but one imposed fiscal conditions that the others did not accept and the official status of the Asturian failed.
Where else does your identity pass?
I have a very strong bond with the landscape. Jovellanos said that the most important thing we have in Asturias is the landscape, the language and the toponymy.
“In the center they are blinded under the spotlight and think that there is nothing around”
How is?
It is an overwhelming landscape, but not in the Pyrenean way, which turns you into a molecule. Here it is strong, but it covers you.
Are things clearer from the sidelines?
In the center they do not know what is real and what is not. They are blinded under the spotlight and think that there is nothing around.
What if…
Those of us who remain in the rural world are not conformists. What we do is resist! Many left thinking that I don’t know where everything would go better. And others come to the field thinking that they will spend the whole day sunbathing and having parties until 5. One of the worst things in the world is having expectations, further enhanced by that shit that if you dream hard you will be fulfilled. It is the biggest source of frustration. Am I becoming a Buddhist?
Same yes. How is your rurality?
I live on a small farm in Piloña, with two donkeys that help me maintain it. In the field not only do I not see any of my ambitions alibied, I see them more fulfilled. I don’t need to go to Madrid or Barcelona. Being in the thick of things just wastes your time and is with someone you don’t want to be with.
The popular has a collective dimension that interests him, he says.
That aura of superiority of the individualistic artist is a bit ‘fake’. Part of the will to be unique and special, and that is a lie wherever you catch it.
You are special and rare.
The really eccentric people are in the town, more than in an following party in Raval or Malasaña. And on top of that they don’t flaunt it. They start telling you regarding their life and you go crazy.
Do you understand his queer side?
They don’t really care much regarding it. And with a kind face you reach the end of the world. Also, in the town I’m super normal.
He doesn’t go with a garter belt to burn stubble.
[Ríe] Maybe one day I go with my nails painted red, because I come from acting.
What do you plant in the artistic?
I am very interested in oral transmission. Hear. The slow. I’m leaving for a whole followingnoon with Anita from Caliao. And I work on memorizing, being present. The romances are driving me crazy.
How was the affection for all this born?
I spent all the summers of my childhood in Rodiezmo, León. There my referent was the whole community. María La Parra, Jacobina, Teodomira educated me… I got into all the patios, the kitchens, the stables. Then I went to study in Barcelona and I forgot; but at the age of 23, walking through the mountains, I found a house and said: “I wanted this, to have cows, and sheep, and goats.”
“The important thing is that they continue to sing in the kitchens, that the tambourine be played a lot, that the jota and the muñeira be danced once more”
And he stuck out his chest for folklore, before Tanxugueiras.
For me, the important thing is that people continue to sing in the kitchens, that people play the tambourine a lot, that they dance the jota and the muñeira once more, that they be aware of what self-management of leisure is, that we do not need to pay I don’t know how much for a speaker to amuse us.
