The first performance as part of Open Space Saturdays is Kin Balam. This performance takes place outdoors on the Massey Theatre outdoor space.
Kin Balam, the path of the jaguar (Indigenous Maya/Lenca) is an unprecedented, groundbreaking musical project of world music, comprising of virtuoso Flamenco guitar, Afro Latin rhythms, Indigenous (Meso-American) instrumentation, Hip Hop of social political content, and improvisational elements of Jazz. This powerhouse of musical spirits come to electrify, and deepen our souls’ beats, while changing the perspective, spiritual quality and vibrational frequencies that hold our bodies and minds in limitation. Indigenous tradition, African drumming of Latin America, Flamenco Gypsy language, Rap hood Poetry, and Jazz improvisation are the cultural ingredients that give rise to the originating group phenomenon Kin Balam who offer us a message of hope, rebellion, reconnection, and the medicine of living from our hearts.
Balam S Antonio, aka Kin Balam studied under the renowned flamenco guitar master Jeronimo Maya In Spain Madrid. Born in the Indigenous lands of Kuxkatan (El Salvador) in the heart of a Central American revolution, along with his family he came to Turtle Island, Canada as a refugee of war. Descending from a long family line of musicians, Kin was born with a unique gift of musical abilities that would one day come to determine the direction and intention of his living. Burying his heart in the pain of urban violence as a teenager with a soul hungry for meaning, Kin opted to die to a self-destructive lifestyle that shattered the foundation of his community, making a vow to focus all of his might and capabilities to create a sound that spoke the positive message and cultural power he felt lacked in the world. Since then he has dedicated his entire being to the refining of his skills, potential, and music to reflect the voice found in his soul, and to serve the oppressed communities of our world.
Kin Balam symbolizes the returning to ourselves, to our roots, to our deepest truths, to our learning of tangible love, to the healing of our pain, to decolonizing, to reconnection, to forgiveness, to the mistakes that fructify into teachings, to the actions required by a necessary social, environmental, and political change. For all we truly leave behind and before us, is the legacy of our actions. And it is this very legacy, which we all must be soulfully, and mindfully giving rise to.
