Letsgoloolala with Lily Anne
Night & Day and the street chase
Dancing on warm summer evenings was my favourite thing to do in Valencia. My first day into the city just happened to be a very special feast day. Vicente informed me of this when I happened to text him about something else. It was Día de la Virgen and early in the day, so I managed to get the best seat available to watch the preparation of the noisy firecrackers known as mascletàs. To my ears they seemed like pure dynamite. I then watched a group of tango dancers who strutted their stuff close to the basilica and later in the day I joined in with an informal group of swing dancers from one of a number of swing dancing schools in the city. This kind of thing happens at our Rhythm and Roots Festival on May bank holidays in Kilkenny weather permitting. Thanks to Hoppers Fusion on Facebook all the swing and lindy hop dance groups in Valencia are kept informed about upcoming events.
One of my happiest evenings in Valencia was dancing at Serranos Towers where I met Fabiola and husband Roberto from Treviso in Italy. They got busy with their video camera with just a little encouragement from the dancers. They very kindly thought of texting me good wishes in April last when dancing out of doors at their home in Treviso as part of a global gesture of solidarity prompted by Covid 19. I chatted with two young women that evening, one a harbour master and the other second in command on a merchant navy ship. One of them had left her heart in Kilkenny or so it seemed given her reaction when I said where I was from. She had certainly frequented a popular pub theatre known as Cleere’s and had enjoyed the ambiance there.
Dancing was a good way to meet people. The lindy hop and swing dance teachers at La Escuela, Victor Gonalez and Ana organised a weekly event in the Turia setting up a small tent with refreshments and a place to keep our bags and shoes. Before I left Valencia I started some tango classes with Olaya Aramo and told her about Jim Mc Manus a Scotsman living in Waterford who represented Ireland at a tango competition in Buenos Aires aged 99, now 100.
Night life took off in on the second leg of my four month stay in Valencia thanks to a chance meeting with Gemma from Sueca on the flight back to Dublin in July. I was invited to Sueca just in time for the MIM Festival (MIME in English) which featured spectacular street performances. Gemma and her dog Brunet met me off the train. The festival was the perfect opportunity to meet some of Gemma’s family members and friends. We also paid a visit to her mother. They seemed to enjoy a very warm rapport. I suppose she has to ‘keep in’ with her mother, when she needs someone to mind her dog when working or socialising in the big city! I stayed overnight in her apartment. She and Alexis stayed up talking half the night but I enjoyed a great night’s sleep after a lively time both at the festival street events and eating out in Bar Bon Estar
Back in Valencia I made a day trip to the Babel theatre for a special week of films. I went to see Gloria Bell, I wonder why. Gloria is a single woman living alone with a cat who loves to go dancing at night. I had seen the 2013 version called Gloria starring Paulina Garciá and this was the 2019 adaptation of the film by the Chilean director Chilean Sebastián Lelios. My preference was the 2013 version by the same director. The song was one of many uplifting songs that I sang in my head and sometimes out loud throughout this whole adventure. I also saw La Viuda starring Isabelle Huppert and Chloe Grace Moretz by our very own accomplished Irish film director Neil Jordan. It was incredibly scary – as scary I thought as Hitchcock’s Psycho. It starts with a green handbag left on a metro. It was identical to a handbag I had brought with me to Valencia. There was no way I was going to bring that handbag again on my metro trips and deliberately left it in Ireland on my return home in July.
Other nights out with Gemma and her friend Inme included Love to Rock, where we all boogied to the music of Ubicacion at The Marina and later a Veles y Vents event also at The Marina and at Cabanyal. My last night out in this wonderful city of Valencia was with Brigitte, who features in my Perpignan collection at the start of this blog. We attended the ballet Carmen in Teatro Olympia.
When I started bumping into people such as Lorena and her cousin Salvo, Miguel and Mercedes, all friends though swing dancing, Marja from Las Honduras, living in Dundalk Ireland but staying with her friend from a school exchange trip in Aldaia, and Davinia an avid hill walker, I felt very much at home. Davinia literally ran out of Trucco in Colon and chased me down the street. The chase had been prompted by her recognition of that green skirt with the comical characters. Valencia is a city of 2.5 million with 29million visitors in 2019.
Friends have asked if I met any men on this trip. Of course I did, and yes I kissed a few. When in Rome…or is that way of greeting just a vague memory relegated to history? For now I think so…but hopefully not forever.