Tierra Viva!
By Dagmar Reinhard
We met with two representatives of the new genre at Las Trincheras (the trenches), the Cultural Center in San Isidro del General.
While Guadalupe was playing her guitar and Paloma her pre-Columbian instruments, and their voices melted into a vibrant hymn to life, we were able to film them and then ask them about their viewpoint of life.
- Guadalupe Urbina is a Costa Rican singer-songwriter of the folklore and world music genres, a painter, and advocate of happiness and simple life. In 1986, she recorded her first album.
For years, she lived in Europe where she received several awards for her work. In 1988, during the Amnesty International tour, she sang with Bruce Springsteen, Sting, Tracy Chapman, and Peter Gabriel at the National Stadium of Costa Rica. Her tours took her around the world; this year she has already visited the US, Spain, and Switzerland.
Three years ago, she performed with the Costa Rica’s Brass Band in our community hall of Bahía. Invariably, after her travels, she is happy to come home to a small town near Buenos Aires in southern Costa Rica.
- Paloma Coronado Manrique is an artist and a musician. She studied pre-Hispanic music and composition. She plays masterfully several pre-Columbian instruments, and other instruments she has recreated.
Her voice is sweet and enigmatic; she sings to the earth and to life. Paloma performed at Envision in Uvita and she inaugurated Kamel´s exhibition, a great painter of the indigenous community of Boruca, at Hotel El Castillo in Ojochal.
It is not a coincidence these two daughters of the same tribe came together to make music, touch souls, and connect with the emotions of their audiences.
Both are undergoing a deep transformation, and are showing us the way to a healthier lifestyle, returning to the roots, longing for nothing more than being happy and grateful for the formidable gifts life bestows.
