Night falls with its gentle, everyday magic, as Guadalupe Urbina sings, transforming the Carlos Rodríguez Santana amphitheater, located in Santa Cruz Park, into a paradise tailor-made for the singer-songwriter born in Sardinal in 1959.
It is past 10 p.m. on January 10. As part of Santa Cruz Cultural Week, hundreds of people surround the stage, eager to see the group Flor de Caña—led by folklorist Marlene Contreras—and their show “Guadalupe Urbina,” a tribute to the singer-songwriter and her more than 40-year musical and cultural career.
Wearing loose-fitting flannel clothes and with her white hair, Urbina settles into a corner of the stage. From her first song, her voice fills the amphitheater. In a silence barely interrupted by applause and sales throughout the park, Urbina, along with a group of dancers, guides the audience through the different landscapes of Guanacaste portrayed in the singer-songwriter’s discography through 13 songs.
Under the slogan “She sings what we are: mud, smoke, and heart,” a display of more than 70 artists, under the general direction of Marlen Contreras, gives shape to Urbina’s musical universe.
The amphitheater’s set design changes according to the themes of the songs performed by Urbina: a child’s room lit by warm light, a wooden boat surrounded by fishermen and their nets, a tropical jungle; and at times, the mere presence of the dancers and their costumes immerses the audience in the Latin American universe that inhabits her music.
At the back of the stage, a screen accompanies the performance with images of the singer-songwriter in the middle of the forest, with a warrior-like aesthetic.
The list of songs selected by the dance group covers Urbina’s entire discography. The show begins with “Canción de cuna”, a piece from the album Sones de Tierra Caliente, released in 2012.
“Sleep, my child, head of squash, for if you don’t sleep, the coyote will howl. Sleep, my child, head of pipián, for if you don’t sleep, the hawk will fly,” sings Urbina, while on stage a bed and a group of children dance, recreating the literary world interpreted by the singer-songwriter.
The soul of live music
The music is performed by a group of musicians led by musical director Daniel Rojas and accompanied by the Quijon-Ngóo Ensemble.
Unlike a prerecorded track, live music gives the show the chance to feel the soul of Urbina’s creations. “Live music has soul. (…) Music is a performing art, which is also very important,” believes one of the ensemble’s musicians, Malcom Jamil.
The choice of instruments reinforces the Guanacaste flavor that envelops the audience from the stage during the nearly fifty-minute show. The marimba, the carraca, the quijongo, and even the juque, an instrument that for decades was considered extinct in Guanacaste and is now being heard again thanks to cultural recovery efforts led by Guanacaste singer-songwriter Karol Cabalceta, all coexist on stage.
An instrument disappeared from the province, and the hope of seeing it again in all its splendor has to do with a seed.
In this tribute, folklore moves away from strict tradition to reveal a new world of possibilities. One of the pieces features an electric quijongo, allowing the audience to hear the instrument’s harmonics amplified, which might otherwise go unnoticed.
For Urbina, the appearance of these Afro-heritage instruments from Guanacaste was a highlight of the show. “It really is like recovering a limb of the province’s cultural body,” Urbina said days after the performance, her memory still heightened by the audience’s response. “I still have that pleasant feeling of being loved and respected. It’s something you don’t get every day, and as the saying goes, nobody can resist a sweet treat,” she said.
An electric quijongo built by Werner Korte and played by Guanacaste musician Malcom Jamil provided musical accompaniment during the tribute.Photo: Adrián Zúgiña
ctric quijongo built by Werner Korte and played by Guanacaste musician Malcom Jamil provided musical accompaniment during the tribute. Credit: Adrián Zúgiña
Jamil also remembers that night with emotion. For him, Urbina’s importance goes far beyond her presence on stage: she has not only influenced generations, but has also rescued and preserved a fundamental part of Guanacaste’s musical memory.
“She is a beacon that has guided many people. I was very inspired to learn about Guadalupe Urbina because, as a young person, I thought that many of those things were already lost, and when I met Guadalupe a few years ago, I discovered that there was a whole universe within Guanacaste (…) Her contribution is invaluable not only for her music, but also for her research and compilations of traditional Guanacaste songs. Thanks to her, we remember people and music that would otherwise have been lost,” says the musician.
A tribute within a tribute
Urbina’s powerful voice and poetry, the band’s diverse music, and Flor de Caña’s detailed work bring a park full of people to their feet to applaud the show they have just witnessed.
“I believe that through Guadalupe’s music, we have been able to convey part of our culture, customs, beliefs, and traditions. Thank you very much for your applause. This performance is for all of you,” said director Contreras amid the applause that honored both her and Urbina.
The renowned director of Flor de Caña believes that a large part of the province is unaware of who Urbina is and his legacy, despite the cultural and social importance of his message. For her, this tribute is a way of giving him the place he deserves in the history and memory of those who attended the event or watched it broadcast on Channel 5.
“Recognizing Guadalupe’s talents as an artist: she sings, composes, plays instruments, makes instruments, writes… all of this revolves around our beliefs, our customs, our idiosyncrasies, our Guanacaste (…) She is not well known in Guanacaste. Many young people in Sardinal didn’t know she existed or who she was,” Contreras told La Voz a few days before the performance.
In the audience, among hundreds of attendees, Esteban Goluboay gets goosebumps when he sees one of his musical idols on stage. He, a 26-year-old dancer born in Liberia who is part of the CañaFistola Folk Ensemble, hears the singer-songwriter who has accompanied him since childhood, when her music played in his grandmother’s house, live for the first time.
“It was very impressive. It is very important that these spaces continue to be maintained and that Santa Cruz continues to preserve them,” says Goluboay.
The night ends with a surprise: in the center of the stage, Urbina and Marlene embrace as they move to the rhythm of “Zumba, que zumba marimba en mi corazón” (Zumba, the marimba buzzes in my heart).
“This should not be a tribute to me, but rather a tribute from me to the best, the great choreographer of Guanacaste and Costa Rica, Marlene Contreras. You have a treasure; don’t let it be forgotten, don’t let it be lost, because this is the legacy of the new generations,” Urbina warns the amphitheater, overcome with the emotion of the night, which, in her words, threatens to smudge her eyeliner.
“Marlene was very revolutionary for her time because she proposed that folk dance had and could be revitalized. This is very important because folk dances are not museum pieces. The art and heritage of our cultures is stronger when it is alive, when it is revitalized,” adds Urbina.
Guadalupe Urbina and Marlene Contreras were swept up in the dancing on stage.Photo: Adrián Zúgiña
The warmth of the audience that night had a profound effect on Urbina: the singer-songwriter who took to the stage was not the same person who, days later, reflected on the experience from her home.
“I had no idea of the contribution I had made to younger generations in the field of folklore. This trip has been key because it has made me reflect a lot on that and consider the fact that I really need to be closer to those processes to understand how they happen, what is going on, because that phenomenon is so big in the province (…) I had no idea of the contribution or the importance that this music could have on the new generations,” she tells La Voz.
A living folklore
On the night of January 10, in a park packed with people, in a collective chill, Guadalupe Urbina and the Flor de Caña group, directed by Marlene Contreras, celebrate a folklore that breaks away from traditional formulas.
For Urbina, Contreras’ vision not only celebrates her career, but was also faithful to her vision of a folklore that reinvents itself and escapes the monotony that she points out from her trench.
“I have never been a woman who devotes time or space to folk dance as it is presented today,” Guadalupe Urbina tells La Voz. “All dance must be reviewed and rethought in order to revive it and prevent it from becoming repetitive. I feel that Flor de Caña has made a great effort to introduce other things, to make changes. I thought it was a very good proposal,” she says.
Here you can listen to the songs that were part of the show:
Canción de cuna:
El sueño
Permiso, compermiso
Orígenes
Araré
Semilla universo
La panadera
Negrito mío
La tórtola
El Barquero
La cumbia de la niña
Por algo estoy aquí
Ulpiano Ulmarimba (Not available)
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