FAM Victor Jara

FAM Victor Jara

Today I'm going to talk about FAM festival. The initials mean "Festival de Arte y Memoria", wich in english means festival of art and memory. This festival takes place in the context of the conmemoration of Victor Jara's birthday (the 28th of september) and the dictatorship that took place in our country. After it was a festival, the conmemoration was only the day of Victor's birthday, but this year it was a whole week of music and dancing in memory of this artist and the circumstances in wich he and many other people died, and the legacy they left behind.

The festival lasts 1 week, but I only attended to the conmemoration of Victor Jara's birthday, the 28th of september. It was in the Victor Jara stadium in the Universidad Latinoamericana's metro station, a really unnoted place in comparison to what's inside of it. I saw many artists that day, there was Manuel García, Pascuala Ilabaca, Intillimani, Elizabeth Morris, Nano Stern, Luis Le-Bert and many others. My favourite artists were Nano Stern and Luis Le-Bert because when they sang they did it with all of their heart, the songs they interpreted made everyone very emotional.

Nano Stern and Luis Le-Bert are two chilean artists that play mostly trova and folk music. Nano was born in 1985 and is 33 years old, he is younger than Luis Le-Bert that is 62 years old. Both artists are icons to the "canto popular" current, wich speaks out the social causes.

The concert, as a conmemoration, had an introductory speech from the actress Mariana Loyola, where she told the public why we had to do acts to remember the dictatorship but most important, why we shouldn't stop fighting for a more fair society. Then, a folklore group initiated the concert dancing a song of Victor Jara. After this, the artists I mentioned at the beggining sang many other song of Victor, like Arado, Manifiesto, Luchin, etc. When they were finished singing there was a break, and Mariana announced that Intillimani came after that. When we came back with my family to our seats, there was an awarding ceremony for Joan Jara, the wife of Victor that is 91 years old and always participates of this event. Later, Intillimani played for about an hour and then the concert was finished. 

I really liked the concert, I think the most special moment was when Luis Le-Bert started playin his song Homenaje. When he was playing it the song got into my bones and everyone who was listening. I've never been moved like that by a song in my life.

"La ciudad no es la misma, no es la que quisimos compartir, no tenemos las manos, no hay a quién mirar, tus ojos se apagaron, a quién voy a cantar" - Santiago del Nuevo Extremo