When Konstantyn and Aspasia first approached me about the possibility of a percussion concert, the first image that came to my mind was that of a lone percussionist in an empty field, singing and playing maracas like those found in joropo tuyero. Although the image was humorous in a way, the longer I dwelled on it, the more it began to suggest something deeper; it evoked loneliness, distance, a primal isolation. 

As I began to contrast this image with something familiar, I detected echoes in my sketches of Julio Cortázar’s seminal work La noche boca arriba, or The Night Facing Up. The short story follows a motorcyclist who, after having an accident, begins to dream that he is a Moteca warrior on the run from Aztec warriors. Actually the story has two storylines developing in parallel: the real life in which he is recovering in hospital, and the “dream” in which he is captured and prepared to be sacrificed. The story ends with a classic Cortazarian twist: just before their sacrificial murder in the dream, the protagonist becomes convinced that the actual dream was his modern life, that he has always been a Moteca warrior, and that what he has been dreaming all along was therefore real. 

Although Boca Arriba is by no means a setting of Cortázar’s story, it certainly takes inspiration from it in its two sound worlds, their interaction and their parallel development. It is also important to recognise the musical inspirations in the instrumentation and style. The use of a balafon and that part’s style is directly inspired by and indebted to the traditions of the Malinké people in West Africa, whereas the writing for the maracas and congas is inspired by the joropo and tambor styles of my native Venezuela. 

Martín Francisco Mayo