2024-05-09 14:38:41
Text: Darcy Borrero
Photos: Eyeife Festival official Facebook
Three years ago, in a room at PM Records where the tobacco smoke gave aroma and at the same time blurred the faces, Suylén Milanés told me details about Eyeife, an electronic music festival that was still a mystery, a desire, the commitment to a confluence space for DJ producers. Then —2017— Suylén defended the idea of creating without excuses, in the wake of fusion with an Afro-Cuban accent. That edition that moved between Fábrica de Arte (FAC) and the ISA, marked the path of the following ones, but she could not fully define it.
“We have had to take sanitary measures that we were not used to,” says the Artistic Director of Eyeife 2020, Mauricio Abad, to seal his response about what changes and what remains the same in Eyeife 2020.
—It is still a traveling festival. We had a first edition in 2017 at the ISA; a second in Almendares, a third in Club 500 (as it is called now). And well, this year, again, beyond our control, we have had to change. If a year has justified this change of location, it has been 2020, due to the pandemic, for being responsible and playing fair.
In 2020, the essence of the festival that takes place between December 9 and 12 is maintained, but the pandemic context demanded levels of adaptation that reach the alternative scene and transform it through virtuality.
“By doing it online, sharing a stage with thousands of young people dancing, jumping, sweating and enjoying the Cuba“>Havana night changed,” adds Mauricio in a nostalgic tone. It doesn’t feel the same as having the audience in front of you, packed into FAC ship 4, dancing. But adapting and surviving is necessary to continue sharing music with the world.
In the non-physical presence this festival has found a strength, something almost mystical: “Much of the music that will be heard this year at Eyeife is music created in quarantine. We are on a very interesting sound journey. There is music that is no longer so danceable, it is not for jumping around, but more to listen to from home, to enter as if on a trip.”
The artistic director continues that “the spirit is maintained, the intention of the festival to continue elevating the ties between electronic and popular Cuban music in all its nuances.”
Eyeife, as a name from the Yoruba religious language, represents positivity, the absolute “Yes”, the energy we need to offer our best version. That seems to remain intact for an event that has managed to survive in the year of the pandemic.
“There are things that we are not willing to give up, regardless of the pandemic or other situations, although now this place or non-place to which we have had to move is immaterial, it is social networks. But we were not willing to give up having a great stage.”
“(What we have) is as big as we could make it given how much working conditions have changed. The staff had to be reduced and we worked at greater distances. And we continue working with masks on,” she details.
The Eyeife Contest
This year, as part of the novelties, the Eyeife Contest was looking for fusion and talent, and found among its 232 applications from almost all provinces, producers like Leonardo Milano, who received the first prize and is on the main stage of this edition of the festival .
—Electronic mix with changüí, which is super complex. They are very interesting mixes… I feel very proud because thanks to the Eyeife contest that we started at the beginning of the pandemic, we have discovered DJ producers throughout the country, who have embraced this concept of fusing (the electronic base) with Cuban rhythms. Not just the Yoruba. What we saw before is that when we told the musicians, the DJs, that we want more electronic music fused with Cuban rhythms, most of the proposals were mixing Yoruba music with electronics from different genres.”
Online masterclass open to public consultation
—We are Cubans and we always try to turn setbacks into victories. Although every year we make a documentary, a video clip and audiovisual materials that we had not been able to share beyond our own community of DJs, and occasionally on TV, this year we do have the possibility of challenging ourselves and going online with masterclasses that will be given from countries like England on the production of electronic music, history of electronic music in Cuba, how to build a brand using digital marketing, how to use platforms, among other topics.
They are conferences that, since they are online, we know that our boys are going to download them and share them among themselves through Telegram and WhatsApp groups. That makes us very happy.
Home sessions y Main Stage
—Although the world situation has prevented some creators from joining, others who have developed a strong empathy with Cuban electronic music are going to play at Eyeife 2020.
The home sessions are, as their name indicates, from home, with young people who filmed themselves in their own way, which we think is very nice because it leaves a portrait of how the covid is being experienced from the point of view of a DJ, of how they maintain their creation processes from their spaces.
The main stage, Main Stage, which is the highlight, will have almost the same number of bands as DJs, although with less time on stage. We have invited Athanai, Osdalgia, the Edesio Alejandro National Music Award, Real Project; Lotus Flower, Escape Route. They are going to play between 10 and 12 minutes. There will be a crazy electronic timba, and all these musicians intertwined with the 45-minute DJ sessions. And when you add all this up it’s 20 hours of music. Transmitted from social networks.
On Facebook we have 20 thousand followers and although we know that not everyone will see the live sessions, that is a potential audience. And then this remains there, timelessly, for consumption, so that Cuban music can be heard around the world.
A free public event
—The event is going to be completely public and free, tickets will not be sold because that would require a payment gateway infrastructure and would limit the audience to those who have that infrastructure. It was decided that this year it was going to be completely pro bono. We have had to work practically twice as hard, with the only difference that there will be no physical audience in front of us. We know that there will be many young people who will not be able to see it live due to the cost of the internet, but at the same time we know that we are going to reach some who can access it from WI-FI to see their favorite DJ. We are left with a good taste and we hope that the Cuban habit of sharing their content in the various ways in which we do it reaches all parts of Cuba.
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In Cuba, electronic music has been present for the last 15 years —Suylen Milanés told me in 2017. But the recognition of this music was little by little and about six years ago it began to be institutionalized. “But I think the most important thing is that DJs today are recognized, they have companies, and record companies and official institutions such as the Ministry of Culture have institutionalized electronic music,” the creator emphasized.
Heir to the Varadero festival where Pablo Milanés managed to bring together, as producer and director, artists from more than 15 countries, Eyeife also owes to Proelectrónica, organized for several years by Alexis de la O and Iliam Suárez, says Suylén, who defines himself as a kind of protector of that other festival.
Three years after 2017 when Eyeife was still an act of faith, a desire, a mystery, his words gain more strength: “When you have been working for music for so long, people get to know you and that creates trust because “There is a story and a figure like Pablo Milanés behind all this.”