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THE RESIDENCY

Rodrigo Laviña’s residency revolved around expressiveness, channelled through rap music, and identity, in this case that of a neighbourhood where serious problems exist, La Marina del Port. The project was implemented in two different stages.

Stage I: Preparation, design and research

During the first stage in the course, we carried out many activities aimed at discovering the neighbourhood. The pupils explored the streets around the school to look with a different gaze at the places so familiar to them as they move around. We also researched into their interests and tastes. The aim was to strengthen the concept of identity before starting the process of writing the first verses in rap. Because rap is built up by the individual rapper and their strong links to community life in the neighbourhood where they live.

Over the first months, we also played many language games in order to encourage comparisons, rhymes and metaphors. The artist’s aim was to was to suggest a more lyrical vision of the reality that surrounds the pupils. They needed to take a new look at the neighbourhood, and also to narrate it without resource to the usual words. This was when we began to write our first verses. Firstly, they were part of rhyming games about their interests but, little by little, they produced freer versions, expressing their thoughts about themselves, the neighbourhood, their friends, the family, etc. At this stage, Èric Fuentes, a pupil from a higher class who was a very talented rapper, came to class to give pupils a hand.

Stage II: Specification and production

At this point, Rodrigo launched the two projects that occupied the closing months of the residency. The first entailed recording a series of rap numbers with words written and sung by the pupils themselves, as well as recording the music using instruments and sounds created in the classroom. In this process, which took several weeks, to complete, we were assisted by Patxi Vazili, a music producer who helped to give a professional finish to the recordings. 

The second project was to create the Tree of Music: a tree that recorded the musical tastes of the pupils and their families, by style and generation. For this project, the pupils drew up questionnaires and distributed around the classrooms at the school. They also entered the resulting data on computer and designed the structure of the tree. 

 

Actions linked to the project

- Breakdance and urban dance workshop with Javi Casado at El Graner Art Factory: with the aim of visiting a local cultural centre and learning about other genres in hip hop culture, we organised a theoretical and practical workshop with the dancer Javi Casado. There, the pupils learned that kids of their own age created the dance moves linked to rap music, and then practised some of the typical steps in breakdance.

- Visits to the neighbourhood: we went around the neighbourhood a few times, playing a very simple game: we had to look at the streets in La Marina as if we were extra-terrestrials who had just landed on Earth, noting all the exotic features we saw, including spaces, colours, etc.