Free of charge, continuity and very high quality. Three indispensable premises for the achievement of popular empowerment of cultural spaces.
I am the daughter of two university professors, which is why I grew up walking through the corridors of our highest university, the Central University of Venezuela, an urban complex designed by Master Carlos Raúl Villanueva, declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2000, for being an extraordinary example of modern architecture.
My father’s status as a university authority allowed us to enjoy the stage in the Aula Magna destined for the Board of Directors of the University, which turned our Sunday mornings into a fixed encounter with the smell of wood characteristic of its walls, stairs, platforms and seat backs, and the extraordinary quasi-kinetic visual of Alexander Calder’s clouds hanging from its ceilings, all of which allowed us to listen with the best acoustics to the concert selected for the occasion.
The “Orquesta Sinfónica de Venezuela”, which had its headquarters there, spared no effort to perform the pieces of the great classics with great majesty.
I was very impressed by the large number of people who religiously and in an orderly fashion turned up for the events, all dressed for the occasion.
Years later, when life and circumstances put me in charge of the management of a cultural institution, I decided to recreate that experience, this time, free of charge and accompanied by continuous activities of the most varied nature, but always with the quality that I had been able to enjoy in those formative moments of my personality.
The most important thing was to get the public interested and make their visits a habit, almost a routine. Some doubted that the open invitation could go hand in hand with the quality of the presentations. Again, there was the apparent diatribe between large capacity and excellence. In my case, I never considered the two as watertight compartments, let alone mutually exclusive. Because I trust in people’s sense of empowerment and, consequently, their care for their part of the spaces, when they are faced with a serious, genuine and well-planned proposal.
This is what we did. We had to summon specialised personnel, because every area, however globalised, requires the knowledge of an expert. Always hand in hand with the historian Luisa Díaz as Culture Manager, we incorporated musicologists, anthropologists, sociologists, scholars of intangible cultural heritage, young singers, musicians, who would start from a strong research work in archives, annals, libraries and above all, in situ, even in the most isolated places of our country, where they could directly find the respective cultural expressions. There could be no improvisation!
Then, a programme had to be planned, which we divided by timeline, with an emphasis on our traditions. We worked on Festivals (Salsa, Joropo, Boleros, Drums, Bagpipes, etc.), within which the Venezuelan different cultural expressions selected would be developed from our own diversity and in a transversal way. There were concerts, workshops on specific instruments, classes on the different types of dances, documentaries, conferences and exhibitions on the subject. Of course, always with the inclusion of children’s activities.
There were concerts, workshops on specific instruments, dance classes, documentaries, lectures, exhibitions on the subject. Of course, always with the inclusion of children’s performances.
Academic music or classical music, on the other hand, had a reserved space in parallel to our programme, so that orchestras, ensembles, quartets, duos, solos and lyrical songs also took over the taste of our visitors, to the point of demanding from us the performance of the most varied and complex symphonies.
Once the content of our activities had been defined, they had to be conveyed in an attractive way. For this purpose, we selected a group of young people, graduates in graphic design or art, who, with their creativity, prepared beautiful and eye-catching monthly and event programmes. Each one was a true work of art, capable of conveying the value of our selection and attracting the interest of all the groups. Each one also contained a summary of the fruits of our research on the theme presented.
As what is not communicated does not exist, the pre- and post-event dissemination work was planned. Social networks were beginning (we are talking about the early 2000s) and we had already understood that it was necessary to provide information through the then called twitter (today x), instagram and facebook, all together with the written and digital press, and the presentation of radio programmes or the publication of a micro-video that we called “All La Estancia minute by minute”, in allusion to a historic football programme that on Italian television transmits at the same time, the different matches that take place in a day.
We were conscious of our social role. Hence, “every activity, publicity, decoration, placement of notices and banners, every moment on the stage, is an opportunity to educate”. Civic values were permanently transmitted, always with a view to empowering our visitors to our spaces and programming.
Each event implied an important logistic, adaptation of stages, awnings and equipment, organisation of chairs, dressing rooms, presence of protocol and security, distribution of informative and educational material, recording, reports and interviews.
There was always something going on in the institution! The image comes to mind of that singer who, as if in fast motion, came out onto the stage each time with a different dress for each song. There was no truce, no rest, only movement, enthusiasm, meetings, walks, strolls, contemplation, enjoyment.
Our visitors were increasing every day. We came to count several hundred thousand people a year. Then, we expanded to every urban area we rehabilitated, under the slogan “recovered space, space taken over by culture”. We also reached out to our neighbourhoods, their squares and recreation areas. Since we were part of the oil company (PDVSA), we opened a branch in two of the main oil cities of the country, in Paraguaná (Falcón State) and in Maracaibo (Zulia State), with the same success, although always emphasising the characteristics of the particular region.
There was also an expansive effect of our action, because all over the country an intense cultural activity was generated, new groups were born, others reappeared, contests were opened, festivals were held, our music became fashionable, which favoured not only the economy, but also the attachment to our Venezuelanness.
I end this story by remembering the faces of many older people, because they were the ones who came to our venues in greater numbers and earlier, took their chairs and kept their places, to be near the stage and often stood up to dance. There they would also meet their grandchildren to introduce them to Tío Tigre or Tío Conejo, while they were doing their tremendous things in our gardens. They and so many others made our house their meeting point, the place where they fought the loneliness of their routines through sharing.
We always prevented our venue from becoming one of those stadiums where the masses arrive, watch the show, leave the rubbish and leave. We were the tangible but also the intangible cultural heritage of all Venezuelans, that’s how we had to transmit it, that’s how it had to be felt.
We have always maintained our premises of gratuity, continuity and high quality. They paid off, because the response was beautiful and effusive. The imprint is reflected in the daily walk of the soul around our rehabilitated spaces.
