¡Vivirla es gozarla!
This year our Noche Herética took place on Friday, March 15th, featuring a most ideal collaboration between undergraduate, graduate students, but also invited performers from the local hispanic community.
This year’s motto, “Vivirla es gozarla” (“to live it is to enjoy it”) motivated us to simply enjoy each other’s presence, to come together and celebrate our talents, to laugh, feel deeply and, why not, dance!
It was a truly magnificent night of dance, song, poetry, a sketch, all completamente en español. With, of course, pupusas and empanadas for everyone!
Please enjoy the full video with the highlights of the night, and/or the photos of the individual performances (below).
Credits
Masters of ceremony: Alejandra Aguilar Palencia & Mario Cabal Muriel
Director: Prof Felipe Quetzalcoatl Quintanilla
Sound tech and DJ: Diego Chiluisa AKA DJ Atah
Stage managers: Adrian Ludet Arevalo Salazar, Ernesto Anaguano Gualoto, Richard Martínez Loyola, Gaby Martínez Loyola
Make up: Lorena Rojas Castañeda
Contests runner: Javier Ponce de Leon
Film crew: Andrew Bilanovic, Audrey Wai-Yin Lam, Ava Omidi
Graphic design and props: Katrina Jade Clark
Poetry judges: Celia Carrasco Gil & Miguel Antonio Chávez Balladares
Best performance judges: Pilar Rodríguez Mata, Prof. Marjorie Ratcliffe, Prof Alba Devo
Sponsors:
First number of the night
Elianis Páez Concepción and Profesora Ana García Allen’s class performs a special choreography, a combination of latin music like salsa, mambo, Cuban casino, to the rhythm of Gente de Zona and Mark Anthony’s “La gozadera”.
Then Alex Uvakov came to the stage and led with a beautiful rendition of “La llorona,” a mexican folk song. Alex is a fourth year music and biology student.
With ukulele in hand, Julia Mezhiborsky joined Alex on stage to sing a duet: “La bicicleta” by the Colombian singers Carlos Vives and Shakira. Both Alex and Julia are in Alejandra Aguilar Palencia’s Spanish 2200 class.
Poetry
Then we opened the floor to the poets, specifically to the winners of the first Noche Herética Poetry Contest.
First place was awarded to Punit Guddeti for his poem entitled: “La belleza de la música”.
Second place was a tie for both Sabryna Brooks and Andrew Cautisanu. Both were present in La Noche Herética and both graciously agreed to read their poems entitled, respectively, “Holguín. Sinfonía de luz y canción” and “Ojalá nunca te hubiera conocido”.
Third place for poetry was also awarded to Raihana Adat for her poem entitled “Nueva Perspectiva”. Raihana was also present and also read her poem.
Mara González González, the first prize winner of the Graduate Poetry award came on stage to read a few of her poems.
And Celia Carrasco Gil, one of our esteemed judges, came on stage to say a few words about her participation in the poetry contest and then to read a few of her poems as well.
And following this, we had the winner of the “Best group performance” award. Cameron, Sara, Hector, Ana and Stephanie, all students in Prof. Felipe Q. Quintanilla’s Spanish 3300 class, performed a sketch entitled “1X100to,” a hilarious skit that ended with a dance and song.
Up next was London troubadour Freddy Almarza playing with Marco Ardón on the bongó and backup vocals. They have played together since 1996 back in Venezuela.
Somos México, a local dance group performed to two melodies originating from the State of Veracruz, the first one entitled "El Canelo," followed by "El Colas," both rich showing influence of jarocho fandango.
Then Emma Q.Z., Prof Quintanilla’s daughter, sang one of her tía Selena’s song (no relation, they just share the same last name), “Cómo la flor”.
To follow up with more musical performances, Hispanic Studies grad Ernesto Anaguano Gualoto, accompanied by his colleague (and also one of the MCs of the night) Mario Cabal Muriel came on stage to perform two musical compositions from Ernesto’s home country of Ecuador, a traditional vals (waltz) entitled “Seré tu sombra,” and a sanjuanito song entitled “Chagrita caprichosa,” all to great applause.
After this Felix Gu delighted the audience with her own rendition of Paloma’s “EAEA,” a song from Eurovision 2023, inspired by a lullaby, but mixing traditional and avant-garde elements.
Felix is a first year student currently taking Spanish who enjoys singing as a hobby. As she told us, this is her first time singing in Spanish.
Laura Pulgarín Cárdenas then gifted us with a mesmerizing performance of “Todo cambia,” a song by the late Argentinian singer songwriter Mercedes Sosa
Laura is a talented Canadian Colombian singer.
The final performance of the night was a marvelous dance number to the tune of “En Barranquilla me quedo” by Joe Arroyo. As a last gesture, the dancers invited everyone present to light up the dance floor, and this how it came to be that everyone danced for about an hour, to the excellent tunes provided by our very own DJ Atah.
