Critics argue priority of social investment and duplicity with the Parque de la Leyenda Vallenata. The project would integrate, in more than 30 thousand square meters, five floors with restaurants, auditoriums, museums, record studios and a viewpoint.
Recently, the Government of Cesar awarded the contract for the construction of the Vallenata Music Cultural Center, which began to take shape in 2013, during the first administration of the current governor, Luis Alberto Monsalvo.
According to Monsalvo, the work, which is shaped like a tree, will show the city to the world to attract tourism and, at the same time, safeguard Vallenato music, in accordance with the UNESCO declaration as Intangible Heritage of Humanity in 2015.
This has generated support, as well as criticism regarding the cost, opportunity and scope of the project, which amounts to 139 billion pesos, whose source is the department’s royalties. Some members of the cultural sector say they feel excluded from the process. Here are some voices from the different areas of the sector.
The social vs. the economic
There seems to be a consensus that the cultural center for Vallenato music is not a bad work. Even the writer Carlos César Silva believes that he may have a good future in terms of tourism. Although he warns that “it is not timely, because what is needed is a strong social investment, since unemployment and poverty have increased.”
Actor and audiovisual director John Bolívar has a different perception. He believes that today’s social problems could worsen in ten years, “because we are not going to have coal mines and we cannot return to agriculture, since mining has wiped out the rivers.” So he proposes that the future should be bet on cultural tourism.
Déiler Díaz, director of Maderos Teatro, supports the view that “the time is not right” and affirms that now there are more important things, such as education, health, etc. He also feels that “there is a fear that the work will remain unfinished, as happened with the football stadium, that the governor sold it with great fanfare, just as he is selling this one.”
On the other hand, the musician and researcher Beto Murgas thinks that he could not be against the project, because he is part of it. He believes that if he has achieved with his House Museum of the Accordion that people from all over the world come, “a space like the center of the Vallenato culture would be fabulous.”
And the Vallenata Legend Park?
In Valledupar there is already an infrastructure designed for large events: the Vallenata Legend Park. Bolívar assures that if Consuelo Araújo Noguera, founder of the Park, were alive, that space would have “the route of the minstrels with very beautiful sculptures, with the walk of the composers and much more”.
This site, which passed into the hands of the municipality and has about 230 thousand square meters, is still incomplete. Sammy Sanabria, manager of the Cesar Philharmonic, wonders “why in that Park, which is even deteriorating, this project is not being executed, since it has similar functions contemplated”.
Follow the news of El Espectador on Google NewsComposer Sergio Moya Molina thinks its creation is necessary and points out that it would not be the same as that of the Fundación de la Leyenda Vallenata, “because they are in charge of rewarding and disseminating it, while the cultural center would be in charge of more than one instructional task.”
Another composer, Santander Durán, believes that the space already available in the Park could rather be used and affirms that “it is made difficult by fights between political clans.” He assures that this hinders the development of the Vallenata culture and adds that the governor “should ask the cultural sector what the city needs.”
No cultural policy
The alternative cultural sectors to Vallenato music, in general, think that the resources that would be invested in that work could be better distributed. Déiler Díaz proposes that with these resources “it is possible to build five well-made cultural centers throughout the department, with good theatrical stages and alternative spaces for the rest of the arts.”
The writer César Silva believes that, in the midst of the social crisis, that money should not be assigned to a single cultural sector, but also to others such as cinema, theater, dance, literature, etc., and in this way meet the economic needs that they had, even before the pandemic.
This is why Déiler Díaz agrees with Sammy Sanabria, who affirms that neither in the municipality nor in the department “we have effective cultural policies that solve the problems of the sector” and he states that “there are artists and managers who do not have anything to eat, who do not have health, rent, many have closed their artistic and cultural enterprises ”.
A sector marched against this project on March 19, but apparently, Governor Luis Alberto Monsalvo seems firm in his decision that Vallenata music should be shown to the world with this mass of cement, while the bulk of the other cultural sectors do not feel represented. They ask for local recognition. The debate is just beginning.
* From the Color Foundation of Colombia.