This year's edition of the Yaiza Simply Festival came to an end last weekend. Days characterized by talks by LGBT people such as actor and director Eduardo Casanova and the second with Eduardo Navarrete, Manuel Zamorano and Oswaldo Machín. In addition, the festival packed the Plaza de Playa Blanca over the weekend with performances by Tributo a Queen and singer-songwriter Ruth Lorenzo, shows applauded for their artistic quality and which closed the edition.
The festival guests have expressed their concern about the perception they have about the increase in hate speech on the street, after more than two years of pandemic. "We will continue to defend what we have achieved, without admitting setbacks in the respect of rights and equalities," as expressed by the director of Shangay Voyage magazine, Alfonso Llopart.
"Art is politics," said actor and film director Eduardo Casanova, to explain creation as a vehicle for communication and activism: "I believe that politics, political discourse and vindication go hand in hand with art. We then have the opportunity to communicate our rights, our own voice, and our individual discourse," he added.
"We need that rebellion or that radicalism of our youth so as not to let ourselves be trampled," resalraba for his part the designer Eduardo Navarrete. However, the 28-year-old creator understands that "the new generations have increasingly clear concepts both in the things of our group and with machismo, but it is true that then unfortunately there are people who go backwards".
The stylist Manuel Zamorano said that, as it had never happened to him in Madrid, a few months ago "he was the object of insults by men who recognized him in the street for his work on television", although clarifying that in no case did he feel fear, "but concern and sadness".
"I left a small town where everyone called me a faggot and when I arrived in Madrid I had the feeling that nobody called me that, that I was free, that I could go with my partner hand in hand and nothing happened, but a few years ago I am starting to notice a very strange feeling," adds Zamorano, although he believes that "although we have advanced a lot, now we are in a stage of regression".
Round table at Yaiza Simply Love
Eduardo Casanova: "The TV helped me to leave school"
The Lanzarote designer Oswaldo Machín feels "proud" to have had and continue to have the support of his family. In fact, his mother and sister were at the dialogue table held at the La Cala hotel in Playa Blanca, and both can attest that his professional career "has not been a bed of roses".
"Each generation has lived the passage of our youth, of the most adult stage in a completely different way, and these are moments in which we have to capture and adapt to each reality," Machín pointed out.
The artists identify coexistence in childhood and adolescence as the hardest stages due to their homosexual condition. Carrying the relationship with classmates or neighborhood is not easy, and for example, Eduardo Casanova, who rose to national fame for his role as Fidel in the series Aída. "The TV helped me to leave school," said Casanova, who excitedly also recalled some episode of verbal and physical aggression in a shopping center where his father, without hesitation, intervened to defend him.
Eduardo Casanova struggled to write and shoot his first script at the age of 18. "What I do is probably what many people have done, but I put my point of view," says Eduardo Casanova.
From the southern Consistory they point out that the protagonists do not change their childhood, among other things, because the adversities have played an essential role in their overcoming, in what they are today as people and as successful professionals. "And curiously, people who previously denied me the greeting, now look for me to professionally help a member of their family," said Manuel Zamorano.
The Councilor for Culture and Equality of Yaiza, Daniel Medina, appreciates the participation of the guests "and their willingness to express their thoughts with total freedom." "That is what we wanted, to have the vision of artists committed to the LGTBI collective who work in the Canary Islands and others who do so in the Peninsula, thus getting to know experiences in different environments," concludes the mayor.
