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Avenida Blues Cuba Tour and Film

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Hello Everyone!
  We are  Avenida Blues ‌ a traditional blues band in Costa Rica. We have recently reached our first anniversary!  This is a little bit of our story, philosophy and future project. ‌

One night George (Guitar/vocals) after meditating it a lot, decided to jump on the busking scene in La Avenida Central, at San José, Costa Rica. Which is one of the busiest streets in the country´s capital, moving away from the rural areas of the country to find better luck in the streets, armed with nothing more than an acoustic guitar, a battery-powered amp and a repertoire of folk tunes and some blues songs.  

It was just a matter of time until Daniel (harmonica) saw him performing after workday, always daydreaming about playing on big blues bands or travelling around the globe busking, that he approached him and asked if he could jam for a song or two.  

They kept meeting from time to time always improvising music at night when almost no one was around just for fun, when they decided to start a blues project.  

Meeting other musicians on the streets that decided to join on the way, decided to form Avenida Blues.  

Our Mission: Tired of the typical music that was heard on the streets we decided to do our own thing, excited about the early sounds of delta blues, country music and some traditional jazz, we found on the streets our home; in a country where the blues is relatively unpopular we want to bring the importance of this genre of music to the people where no one else wanted to give us an opportunity.  

We stand for freedom of speech, and work hard on de-criminalizing free art, and street music. Our message stands to demand for better opportunities for artists and musicians, using music and peaceful protest against police brutality, injustice and free and accessible music for everyone, we want to give a new color to the city in order to keep it alive.  

With time Avenida Blues emerged, and played in several streets, parks and avenues, was then started to be invited to perform in coffee shops, art galleries and small venues, always keeping an open format to any musician that wants to share with us, giving opportunities to musicians from several parts of the country to perform anywhere in an open space.

Avenida Blues is always seeking to play anywhere wanting to express his message of peace, personal growth and the importance of self management to rise even without resources, with this Philosophy, we then started to share stage with important bands in the country and then performing on big events and international festivals.  

Current Band Line Up:


-Jorge Luis Nuñez: Lead vocal and Rhythm guitar 

-Daniel Vilaplana: Harmonica

-Carlos Rocha: Lead Guitar

-José Arróliga: Tenor Saxophone

-Cesar Barrantes: Upright bass

-Francisco "Pachi" Paz: Drums

-Diego Ramirez: Washboard

About the Tour :

We have been officially invited to perform in Cuba, on the  Romerias de Mayo, one of the biggest Festivals on the island. which take place in the province of Holguín. During the first week of May, for 7 days.

The festival is made every year and it is completely self produced by the Holguin population with limited resources doing one of the most important Festivals not only on the island, but the whole Latin american region.

Bands from all over the world, do everything possible to be able to attend at their own expenses, as Holguín becomes the art and culture capital of the world by 7 days.

After hearing about our difficulties playing on our streets,  the President of the Romerias de Mayo committee has invited us to perform on Holguín streets sharing with the Cuban people and musicians our art, and the experience of learning with them on the process, as well has having an official presentation on the Big stage on the Festival.

About the Web Series :

We want to leave a small legacy with our project, being able to share our message: When you really want to do something, even without resources, working against all odds, if there is enough will power and determination you can do it.

We are teaming up with an emergent audio visual group which is made of University Students which are going to help us to film our experience from the Streets of San José to travelling and performing on Cuba on our visits to Havana and Holguín.

The Web series format will be of 9 episodes: The first one a summary of our preparation on Costa Rica to leave to Cuba, then 7 more, one per day during our adventures on Holguin and an additional one to capture our  brief 2 day visit to Habana and finally our return home.

We plan to release one episode per month for free on the Internet. After the complete webseries have been posted. We will work on the full lenght film version which will have extra footage to extend each episode, deleted scenes and the extras which will include our performance on Romerias de Mayo, band commentary and any interesting show we get to capture (as long as the bands allow us to do first so we can't promise about this first, but we will surely try)

Keeping all costs as low as possible we will document our travels and tell our experiences to everyone and to show what Cuba is doing with the Romerias de Mayo, which is going to be the 24th edition this year.

This production will not be limited to be a documentary about a band, but about their experiences on the island, a cultural perspective and the ability to show viewers almost as if they were there the whole journey.

Production Team Cast:

-Sharee Prado

-Wendy Salazar

-Karina Torres

(Camera photography, edition, script and edition)

Our project wants to unite arts of several areas to help several people grow in their own areas, not only music but photography, plastic arts and independent film will be benefited from this funding.

What we need:

The only thing we need are the Airplane Tickets for the whole band and the supporting Crew. And the Travel visas and taxes required by Cuban Law
(10 people in total)

Alimentation, Internal Transport and Lodging will be handled by our own means.

We want to keep costs as low as possible in order to have more possibilities to suceed.

If we met and exceed our goal we will use the additional funds to complete the recording of our Album.

Special Thanks and a big hug to our friends that supported us on our video!

-Diego Alonso Hurtado (Trumpet)

-Esteban Corrales Angulo (Guitar)

-Alejando Corrales Chacón (Guitar)

-Steven Levy Herrera (Electric bass and quijongo bass)

-Johnklin Blanco Salazar: (Washboard)

-Daniela Saborio: (Vocals)

-Sören Krämer: (Cajón)

-Mario Valderde: (Bongoes)

-Wester Perez, Flarndey Chaves: (Photography)

-Catalina Kramer, Sharee Prado,
Karina Torres: (Filming)

-Ileana Chacón: (Edition)

Risks and challenges
The main risks and challenges come to any extended travel, Cuba appears to be a really interesting place, but as with any travel to a different country, we must adapt to a different culture, and follow a set of rules.

In total the travelling crew will be of 10 people, so keeping a big group can be challenging. Also its important to consider May is around the corner so its a race against time to get everything before the Festival starts so we don't miss our own shows!

We are prepared to face anything that shows up, some of our members have been affiliated with First Aid teams and Firemen, we can accommodate to any kind of budget and play in almost any condition.

If funding is not met, the complete idea of doing a documentary film will be cancelled and traveling to Cuba would still be possible but really difficult, and not encouraged as resources would be extremely limited.
The band format would Change to a two piece instead of a 7 piece due to limited funda.
The experience will change completely but we will manage to do it, as we always do.

You can find us on Facebook:

Https://www.facebook.com/avenidablues

Organizer

Daniel Vilaplana
Organizer
Chartres

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