Amanda Vilanova’s cultural highlights

Amanda Vilanova is a Puerto Rican writer, actor, and translator based in London. She holds a BA in Comparative Literature from the University of Puerto Rico and an MA in Acting from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.

She writes fiction and drama in English and Spanish and is interested in bilingualism and the migrant experience. She wrote and performed Hurricane Diaries, a piece that explored the history of her native country and received 4 and 5-star reviews. As a playwright and translator, she also collaborates regularly with the company Puerto Rico Theatre Lab. She is a regular contributor to and events host for Writers Mosaic.

 

Socialising:  Esquina El Watusi, Santurce, Puerto Rico

 Named after the strong mulato figure of Ray Barreto’s song, Esquina El Watusi is a popular chinchorro (dive bar) in one of Puerto Rico’s hippest neighbourhoods. You walk into an old school Boricua corner shop with rum bottles lined up behind the till and salsa music in the air. Buy a bottle of ice-cold beer, sit outside on a plastic chair; take in the street corner. Look up at the Jíbaro figure painted on bright green walls, find murals honouring salsa legends and feel your bottle sweat as live plena and bomba performances materialise. Visited by locals and tourists alike, it’s proper island life.

https://www.discoverpuertorico.com/profile/esquina-watusi/6216

Live Music: Able Noise

 I’m not really an experimental music fan. I grew up listening to salsa music and love a catchy beat and a singable chorus, but watching this duo live at LINE UP Festival was a moving experience. Baritone guitarist George Knegtel from the Netherlands and drummer Alex Andropoulos from Greece create sounds that move between the strange and the infectious. They play in response to one another while the powerful imagery in their lyrics floats above guitar strums and drum taps, clicks, and hits. Their album High Tide came out on the 1st of November, but look up live dates to get the full experience.

https://ablenoise.bandcamp.com/album/high-tide

 

Album:  Mima (2005)

 Puerto Rico doesn’t only produce salsa and reggaetón music. I come back to this album anytime I want to introduce people to the island’s alternative music scene. Yarimir Cabán Reyes, the driving force of MIMA, is a talented queer singer-songwriter whose work stretches from ballad to dubstep. Mima was their first album and is an excellent introduction to the artist’s beats, humour, and eroticism. You will bop to the rhythms and swing to the unusual vocals. Send the song ‘Menos mal que no’ to your significant other before embracing their album El Pozo then following that up with their dub and reggae singles.  

 

https://www.nts.live/shows/radiored/episodes/radiored-12th-december-2023

 

  Poetry: Al Qué Quiere by William Carlos William

Sometimes poetry finds you at exactly the right time. I picked up William Carlos Williams’s collection Al Que Quiere (first published in 1917) and was fascinated by the parallels between daily life in 1910s New York and modern London. The poet and doctor, an American of Puerto Rican descent and part of the Imagist movement, captures the silence of a weekday evening, the cadence of a strong woman’s gait, and the beauty of youth running across a city fuelled by possibility. He reflects on ageing and the darkness in people’s hearts without pretence. The poems will both surprise and make you smile in recognition.

 

https://www.ndbooks.com/book/al-que-quiere/

 

Akram Khan’s Giselle

A night at the ballet turns into a ghostly commentary on class, love, and deception. Khan’s choreography is visceral, with performers leaping and crawling to reflect Giselle’s heartache while figures of the ruling class stand still, capturing just how overpowering rulers can be. The set and costume design are stark yet imposing supported by a vivid lighting design. Everything about the piece is breathtaking. The second half begins with an army of ghostly women, raised on pointe shoes and bearing sticks, who come from the underworld to avenge their suffering at the hands of men. What’s not to like?

https://www.ballet.org.uk/production/akram-khan-giselle/

 

A Favourite WritersMosaic Writer:

It is hard to choose only one writer in the WritersMosaic family. There are a host of talented people who bring perspectives that challenge and excite me. I have particularly enjoyed the work of Peter Kalu. He is an imaginative, energetic, and funny writer who explores the off-kilter in our world in ways that surprise you. As you peruse the WM website, listen to his reasoning behind writing three things at once and then check out his piece: ‘Five Blows to the Head’. You’ll be ready to pick up his stories, poems, novels, and plays in no time.