Barefoot diva Cesaria Evora is back in Kyiv; Get your snack at the “Adeaters Night”
“If I’d known young people could die, I’d never have loved anyone,” proclaims Cesaria Evora in one of her most famous songs. The Cape Verdean star, hailed as one of the most influential black voices in the world, has enjoyed a truly exceptional destiny, rising from rags to riches in the course of her long career. The singer, who close friends and family call “Cize,” is better known to millions of music fans around the world as the “Barefoot Diva” because of her penchant for appearing barefoot on stage, is coming to Kyiv again after three years.
A native of the island nation of Cape Verde, Cesaria Evora is known as the country’s foremost practitioner of the “Morna” singing style, which is strongly associated with the islands and combines West African percussion with Portuguese “Fados,” Brazilian “Modhinas,” and British sea shanties.
Evora began singing morna after meeting an attractive young guitarist. Her talent soon had her performing all over the islands, and in the late ‘60s two of her radio tapes were released as albums in the Netherlands and Portugal, respectively.
In spite of her increasing popularity, Cesaria struggled hard in the early days of her career and actually ended up abandoning music for a full 10 years. These years appear to have been largely spent drowning her sorrows and failed love affairs in drink. In 1985, at the age of 45, she decided to return to music and traveled to Portugal to record two songs for an anthology of female Cape Verdean singers. This led to subsequent recording sessions in Paris, which resulted in four albums from 1988 to 1992. In all, Cesaria Evora has released eight original albums and won many prizes, including one from UNESCO, as a leading African singer. She has also been nominated three times for an American Grammy award.
Now Cesaria has left the bad old days of alcoholism and poverty far behind. The singer has built a huge house in Mindelo, where she likes to entertain family and friends at a table piled high with Catchupa (a traditional Cape Verdean dish). Meanwhile, the legend of Cesaria Evora lives on, delighting thousands of enthusiastic fans worldwide. Despite being in her sixties, Cesaria has not slowed down her concert schedule at all. Cape Verde’s barefoot diva kept up her indefatigable schedule, acting as a roving ambassadress for the traditional sounds of her homeland which, thanks to her, had become an integral part of the international music map.
Palats Ukrayina (103 Chervonoarmiyska, 268-9250). Nov.20, 7 p.m. Tickets from Hr 250 to Hr 700
The newest showing of “The Night of the Adeaters,” one of the most outstanding and popular events in the advertising business, twice written up in the Guinness World Records, will take place on Nov. 17 at Kyivska Rus cinema. For the seventh time, “The Night of the Adeaters” will give an exclusive chance to all fans of video pop art, short films and TV commercials, to taste the most unusual, juiciest and hot dishes coming out of the advertising kitchen. The founder of the festival, French adman Jean Marie Boursicot, has changed his approach to forming his ad collection this year: instead of lengthy retrospective show blocks and a series of reels dedicated to one product, the six-hour show will consist of fresh dynamic films made mostly this year. Audiences will be able to appraise 400 of the world’s best advertising films from Jean Mari Boursicot’s collection, 380 of them, never having been shown in such format before. The menu of the night is so varied that everyone will be able to satisfy their appetites with international, social, exotic, animated, classical and innovative ads. The six-hour film-marathon will be shown on the biggest screen of the country, in Kyivska Rus’s main hall, as well as on plasma screens in the lobby.
Kyivska Rus (93 Artema). Nov. 17, 9 p.m. For ticket info call 486-8273, 486-7474
