Las malignas raices del bien

One day, after having drinks with Paco Carvajal, then director of the Teatro Alfil, we went past a huge pothole in the Salamanca neighbourhood, about thirty metres deep and almost as big as a football field.

Yes, indeed, they had begun the excavations of what was to be a future car park. Paco walks on and comments: “Vidal, you have to do a performance here, in this hole.” I played the game and with the same attitude replied: “All right, Paco, all right. But a week from now and you organize it.” He couldn’t back down, and neither could I. The die was cast.

Those were still the times in Madrid when in the wake of its mayor, Tierno Galván, and the “Movida Madrileña”, there were still flashes of creative dreams. Paco and his team set to work with a stubbornness and energy that was difficult to describe. The truth is, it was a good one.

Something I found hilarious. He went to talk to the conductor of the “Guardia Urbana” Orchestra and told him – it wasn’t true because he hadn’t even spoken to her yet – that the councillor for culture was enthusiastic about the project.

After the approval of the conductor of the “Guardia Urbana” orchestra, there wasn’t enough time to go to see the Councillor of Culture: how happy they were with the idea the “Guardia Urbana” Orchestra and of course we had the approval of the construction company that as you can imagine had not even been spoken to yet.

In short, they all replied affirmatively and on the day which was indeed a week later, there were television cameras, two thousand people around the hole, a construction truck and a bulldozer that we had no idea from where it came, ready to help with what was advertised as Las malignas raíces el bien

Ah! And I have forgotten, of course, the wind and percussion instrument band of the “Guardia Urbana” of Madrid.

Even before it began, it was a masterpiece in bootleg production. However, at the last minute the directors of the construction company had come along to cancel the event because they had been the last to know about it.

I was concentrating on the beginning of the performance when I saw Paco down in the pit arguing angrily with four suits from the department store called the “El Corte Inglés” but because of the distance I couldn’t hear anything of the conversation. When I asked him later what it was about, he told me that a guy who had presented himself as the director of the building company wanted to stop the event and that when he saw 30 “Urban Guards” going down the ramp, he demanded that they intervene but those gentlemen with their hats and uniforms told him that they were very sorry but that they had only come there to play their trumpets.

So there was nothing more that the managers could do than to leave the place furiously. Thus I was able to give myself placidly to the gods of that significant performance in which I would embody the spirit of a snake that after being interrupted in its lethargy by the digger is pursued by it until it reaches it with its shovel. After lifting it 8 meters high, it placed the Serpent in a dirt truck that would ascend the ramp with the wounded Serpent’s Soul on the pile of earth.

This was the first ritual in a series of three performances of INDUSTRIAL SHAMANISM that he released as an officiant possessed by the energies of the Serpent. At the end of the ritual, a song of mourning and wailing was sung to the sound of a Pasodoble by the Municipal Band of the “Guardia Urbana”.

The effect was impeccable and the audience could not repress a chorus of “bravo, bravo” until the truck disappeared.

This, in one week had been a miracle.
Long Live Art! Life ahead and the flower of life are works of art transmitted by craft..

THE EVIL ROOTS OF GOOD

The building company
Drills through the telluric space
To accommodate a car park
Purity and urban paradox

Dance and sing in the heart of her womb
To trample in ecstasy on the deep, penetrating wound
With cries of love and pain

The ritual dance celebrated
The big caterpillar shovel will enter the bullring
Pulling the dancer out and depositing him
In the debris truck

This exodus of consciousness
Will be accompanied by musicians
In a procession behind the truck
To the asphalt

Along about 300 meters
Stunned passers-by will be able to appreciate
Of our contemporary experience
De la nostra vivència contemporània.