The beauty of a blog is that I can post things as they come up. If you’re not dancing in Santa Fe Saturday night, you can be dancing in Albuquerque with no instruction, just groovin’ and movin’ to the rhythmic music of Wagogo. I stole most of this info from neal copperman, the master concert promoter who organized ¡Globalquerque! I can personally attest that Wagogo is so dance-rhythmic, I once started a congo line with a hundred 60- to 80-year-old women dancing to them!
An AMP Dance Party with Lura (from Cape Verde) and Wagogo from Albuquerque
Saturday, January 28, 8:00 pm
El Rey Theater, 620 Central Ave SW (Downtown)
$20 advance, $25 door
Tickets at abqmusic.com, Bookworks, and Natural Sound
Late night dance party with Wagogo follows the Lura show. Tickets to see Lura include admission
to the Wagogo show. Separate admission to see Wagogo at 10:00 is $8 at the door only, but why
would you want to skip Lura? There is a huge buzz on Lura these days. She was one of the big hits of ?Globalquerque! before heading off to play festivals across the United States and a well received European tour. For this swing through the states, she’ll be doing two nights at Globalfest in NYC, the Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis and cool clubs in Chicago and Seattle.
Lura is from Santiago, the most African of the Cape Verde Islands, located about 300 miles off
the coast of Senegal. The music is a sexy, slinky Afro-Portuguese blend, combining styles like batuku (songs inspired by the rhythm and gossip of communal laundering) and funana (an accordion-based dance song) with Portuguese Fado and jazz.
The night will end with a late night dance party with one of Albuquerque’s best world music bands
– Wagogo. Several members will have just returned from Zimbabwe, so they should be full of new ideas and energy. This is a rare chance to see Wagogo in a big theater with a great dance floor. In case you haven’t heard, the El Rey has been no smoking for over a year now. If you’ve never been, there is a wooden dance floor in front of the stage and the theater is tiered. There will be tables and chairs out on the other tiers for those who don’t want to dance all night. Visit www.abqmusic.com for more info. And boogey on…