The first edition of Sónar Lisboa amazes before it begins

This Thursday the first Sónar Lisboa was presented at the Hub Criativo do Beato, an old industrial space next to the port and overlooking the formidable Lisbon Tagus, still in rehabilitation, I hope no one breaks their brains on the precarious stairs. The Hub Criativo do Boato will be the venue for Sónar+D, which together with three others (Pavilhao Carlos Lopes, Coliseo dos Recreios and Centro de Congressos de Lisboa), each one more spectacular, will host Sónar Lisboa 2022 from this Friday until Sunday .

Meneses, who turned out not to be a crackpot, defended Sónar Lisboa with three strong arguments: Lisbon is a cultural crossroads of the highest order, connected by its colonial past with African countries and Brazil; Lisbon is a traditionally cosmopolitan city, and Lisbon is embarked on a firm commitment to digital culture.

The words of the director of Sónar Lisboa were endorsed by none other than Rita Marques, Secretary of State for Tourismand by Carlos Moedas, mayor of the capital of Portugal, who is clear about it: if a city initiates a plan to be a benchmark in creativity and technology, it makes perfect sense for it to join Sónar.

Institutional red carpet for the Barcelona festival, let’s go.

Enric Palau, one of the three co-directors, was the visible face of the Mother Sonar. In the institutional act he was “proud and happy” to open a branch in a “sister city of Barcelona”.

After the official presentation, Palau, musical eminence in his own sober way, made juicier evaluations. “In Portugal there is an exceptional cultural miscegenation, more than anything because it occurs naturally. It only has to be said that imported and shot the kuduro“, he pointed.

Sónar Lisboa has an attraction that is not without risk: it is held in four different venues, and not exactly one next to the other. “This provides an opportunity to do a city safari,” Palau said.

This safari includes an installation that by itself is more than enough reason to take the plane and travel to Lisbon. This is ‘Nati infiniti’, by Alessandro CortinoLisbon-based musician known for his collaborations with Nine Inch Nails. The four floors of the intact state flour factory in the manufacturing complex where the Hub Criativo do Beato is being born, a building closed for ten years and which was the center of a colossus dedicated to the production of bread and pastries, host the same musical composition of Cortino at different frequencies. You have to see it and hear it to believe it. Dozens of silos and machines and hundreds of vertical ducts take on new life with Cortino’s intervention.

Palau did not miss it and said: “Being able to use a building as if it were an instrument is amazing”. You can be sure that it is. The jewel in the crown of the Sonar+D exhibition area.

Other proposals from Sónar+D, an area curated by Antònia Folguera and which generically revolves around the idea of ​​sustainability, are no joke either. Like for example the mechanical sculptures of Andre Goncalves, loops more hypnotic than the long old Pump-N-Seal commercials; ‘Wetland’, a sound immersion in a threatened ecosystem of the Tagus by Claudia Martinhoor the well-known ‘Earthworks’ in Barcelona, ​​in which the duo Semiconductor move animations with the compressed noise of volcanoes, earthquakes and glaciers. That is, centuries pass before your eyes and ears.

Sónar has celebrated more than 100 festivals abroad to date, in 35 cities in more than 20 countries. Without going any further, on March 18 and 19, the sixth uninterrupted edition of Sónar Istanbul took place.

Sónar Lisboa will offer more than 70 ‘shows’ until Sunday, including those by Arca, Bicep, Thundercat, Leon Vynehall, Polo & Pan, EU.CLIDES or I putAngolan neo-kuduro artist who has just released the album ‘Sakidila’ and who will also perform at the next Sónar madre, in Barcelona, ​​from June 16 to 18.