There is another aspect of the ensemble which is related to my research. The research started by inquiring about the representation of Latin American cultural identities so the identity of the ensemble itself is supposed to be an artistic reflection based on the cultural identities studied during this research. The image of the ensemble is meant to project the idea of "ideal cowboys" depicted in the poetry of the Huapango and Joropo (two genres of the Caribbean ternary mattered repertoire related to livestock culture). We would like to base the appearance and the "discourse" of the ensemble on the idea of the archetypical llanero embodied in the traditional figure of Florentino or "Cantaclaro", which gives the name to our first recording. Florentino is a popular character that is said to have beaten the devil in a contest of improvised verses at a Joropo Fandango Celebration. He appears in traditional joropo-lyrics, and was used as an inspiration by some of the best classical national Venezuelan poets: Romulo Gallegos depicts Florentino as the protagonist of a story denouncing the sociopolitical crisis of the plains in his Nobel "Cantaclaro" (1940) and Alberto Arvelo Torrealba, in his poem "Florentino and The Devil" (1940) narrates the legendary piquería or contrapunteo (a fandango battle of improvised verses) in the nationalist, classical language that characterized literary production around the time. This archetype of the llanero-cowboy embodied in Florentino is full of a desire to be "ideally masculine". Florentino is a flirty cowboy, adventurous, strong, and clever.
Since this research is about identity and representation, we are aware that reproducing the image of this (sometimes violent and misogynist) masculinity expressed in Joropo lyrics could represent a danger. In order to avoid amplifying the conservative patriarchal message, and to deactivate its potential danger, we have chosen to use humor and satire. The goal of the ensemble, would be therefore to embody those stereotypes about Hispanic masculinity in a sarcastic way. In the photo-shooting presented on this page, you can find our first intent of making a joke about masculinity (all photos by Alex Schröder). These photos are meant to appear in classical-music programs and give the impression of "rebellious cowboys". We have articulated this image with the sense of irreverence that comes from the fact that we are performing popular music on classical music stages. Below, you can see the poster made for the exposition "Music as a Way of Life" celebrated at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague in February 2023. It shows a sketch of the pseudo-political humoristic discourse created around the character, taking the concepts gathered during the research. This discourse is meant to provoke the "cultured" audiences of Early Music and to inform classically untrained (popular) audiences. In general, the idea of the ensemble is for it to act as a bridge between audiences and genres, overcoming the opposition between European ancient cultured written music and Latin American contemporary popular oral music.
3.3. RESULTS: POSTCOLONIAL FANDANGO
As a form of conclusion, I present here "Postcolonial Fandango", the ensemble that resulted from my "Master Project" at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, and is related to the research. The Ensemble itself belongs to the part of the curriculum called "Professional Integration Activity" where we are encouraged to develop a professional strategy to enter the cultural market (as freelancers we are supposed to develop an idea to sell to programmers and venues), but ensemble itself is as well the outcome of this research because it is guided by the same objective that guides this research: to create a postcolonial artistic interpretation of "Latin American Baroque" through the creation of a crossover style that explores and illustrate the relationship between fandango-related baroque music and surviving Latin American folklore- Fandangos. The crossover style was built based on different artistic models. The main references for the mixing between baroque (classical) music and folklore are Venezuelan violinist Alexis Cardenas, Mexican guitar ensemble Tembembe Ensemble Continuo (particularly their project "El Nuevo Mundo, Folias Criollas" collaboration with Jordi Savall and Antonio García de Leon) and the German-based Ensemble Los Temperamentos. The main references for the concrete Folklore-genres were Los Camperos de Valles (for Huapango) Alexis Cardenas, Grupo Cimarrón and El "Cholo" Valderrama (for Joropo) and the Panda de Verdiales Raíces de Almogías for the Spanish Verdiales.
