And I am all

Havana knew she had nothing to offer. She knew she was one among so many other foreigners who found in her stories a certain something that postponed her return ticket. The Spanish woman turned into verse the rhythm of the city and the beat of its people. Havana knew she had nothing to offer, but Zo Brinviyer gave the capital a reason to believe.

In the intimate Nave 1 of the Cuban Art Factory that day there was magic. At least that's how it felt from the front row of the auditorium: A recital of poetry and jazz, Cuba and Spain uncovering the same wound. Lachy Torriente was in front with his trumpet; Tobías Alfonso on piano and Fabio Abreu on drums, Oscar Martínez on percussion and Joel Alejandro del Río on bass. Among the satisfied looks of the musicians, after contemplating the result of so many rehearsals, Zo's voice emerged. I had never before taken the difficulty as a triumph, the discomfort of the tricycle that took me to the Factory was worth it.

The performance began with a tap of drumsticks that broke the tremulous silence of anticipation. The quality of the band and the wit of the musicians lifted me up. The Spanish playwright was in charge of sustaining time through the nakedness of her words. With jazz setting the tone and making the verse a breeze, some of those present healed; others identified their wound.

"I am a rarity in the world of words because I have been nourished by other arts, I have explored other terrains," said the writer. "This project was born from the desire to make words fly, to make them dance, sweat, explode. For this I needed musicians. Lachy has believed in this dream of mine from the beginning, almost before I did myself."

Photo: Bifocal glasses

It was precisely their complicit glances that threaded the recital. After a trumpet solo and the necessary breaths between verses, Lachy nodded his head to see that the presentation was flowing according to what he had once designed. The spectators listened from the edge of their seats. There were no more chairs available because even those who passed as curious decided to stay in the nave. Zo's voice stopped trembling. The musicians looked at each other to program the emotional closing of the first poem. They dimmed the lights.

"In the Anglo-Saxon world, there is a long tradition of jazz poetry. Since the beginnings of jazz, poets have been in dialogue with musicians. They have never stopped doing so. However, there are very few references in Spanish. So we felt like explorers. We began to try with materials that would make us tremble, that would go through us. The purpose is to interact with these different genres and brothers, to dialogue with them, to listen to each other", the artist confesses to me.

The woman appeared before everyone convinced of the pain that had brought her there, like someone who had to ignore herself a thousand times until she understood that love must give new names to emotions; it is part of life. The same life that anchored her irremediably to the Cuban soil, which she placed as the title of the compendium of experiences of her second poem. For her the revolutionary is to say what she feels. "How many times I have died and I do not get tired of returning, as if it would not hurt".

The Santiago Feliú hall witnessed the musicians' confidence in the special synergy they created with the author's verses. The complicit smiles between Tobías and Fabio announced the moments in which the climax would be incomparable or the notes would descend looking for the end. They knew they were making history.

Brinviyer dedicated part of the cry to her daughter. His verses were a gift; a way of telling her in front of people that as a woman she would not be short of a storm, but that only she could decide on which wave she would inhabit. He explained to her about the suffering that was worth taking on if she wanted to be free. As a daughter, I saw my mother's aspirations summed up in Zo's sigh, in her sometimes lost gaze. There were mothers in the audience who touched their hearts along with her. She managed to connect with the motherhood of many others.

Photo: Bifocal glasses

Among the gradualness of the emotions there was a specific moment of ecstasy, where I dedicated myself to translate the attention of the people who vibrated as part of the energy of the show. It reminded me of Martin Luther King's famous speech, I have a dreamThe poem, like this one, demanded freedom and justice for the citizens of a country. The Spanish woman's dream was called A king without a kingdom. A kingdom where truths were whole and the king represented his culture. The interpreter's confidence became overwhelming through her oratory. The background sonority that accompanied her was baroque, which gave a tempestuous hue to the moment. She was very sure of the nightmare she did not want to live when she wrote the sixth poem of the night.

She dreams that there are no passports, no circumstances, no knots in the chest, no power of decision that others have over what we believe. Then Regis Molina burst onto the scene with a melancholic saxophone solo. The multi-instrumentalist from Havana and Berlin displayed his remarkable improvisation skills.

The presentation went through different genres. The rap came from Etián Brebaje Man. Regis's talent provoked the humming of the iconic theme song Kiss me a lot by those present. Far from being the last, it felt like the only time such respect and humility would be achieved on stage. The rumba sealed the night.

"Cuba is a country that has marked my life," the Spaniard told me. "All the poems in this concert have been gestated with the experiences lived here and as a woman in this world of men. Cuba destroys me, but it also embraces me in a generous, unexpected, sublime way. My poetry could not stand on any other music than this one. There are few certainties, but when there are, they are that strong," she added.

Photo: Bifocal glasses

Zo stated that the poems were written to be said aloud, in the theater and on the street, not to be read at home. "I want to share my intimacy with you because in doing so we become aware of the common experiences we all have. And that intimacy then is political. To be vulnerable, to say what happens to us and what we feel is a necessary gesture, and to do it in the most beautiful way possible, it must be with music. Music brings us back to the light that we are and connects us with the universal," he concluded.

I witnessed a plurality of emotions displayed with courage in this recital. I saw myself as a child, not so adult and old woman. I portrayed myself with her face. I heard myself through the music. Lachy and Zo led the magic of a moving work. I am also the one who waits, the one who adapts and the one who gets fed up. I am also the journalist, the daughter and the girlfriend. And like Zo, and together with her, irremediably, I am all of them.