Kenajanayowa (Jugando Redondo)

"Kenajanayowá" ("playing round" in the Kawésqar language) is based on free interpretations of musical elements founded by musicologist María Ester Grebe in the music of the Kawésqar or Alacalufe people in Southern Patagonia. The work takes some rhythmic and repetitive elements of Kawésqar dances for children. The movement in circles and its intoxicating effect or dizziness inform these dances, manifested in this percussion duo, full of recursive and partially repetitive elements that recall the "round play" and its derivation in the game of jumping rope.

The work reinterprets these rhythmic and melodic patterns, adapting Grebe's transcriptions to the percussion instruments. The patterns in the score have expanded over time, and the work behaves like a series of suspended episodes separated by long apneas, which also serve to accommodate the change of mallets or instruments. The piece proposes a spiral development, orbiting around a limited number of elements, until dissolving in an ether created exclusively by the action of the cymbals.

Recorded at Estudio Sur, July 2017. Sound engineer: Cristián Arias.