REVIEW FOR WAKANA FESTIVAL 2019
Wakana Reunion, Spain’s newest boutique festival located in the heart of the Los Alcornocales Natural Park in Cadiz, a few weekends ago for its second edition. And, after building on the success of 2018, the team behind the festivities have managed to pull off a phenomenal weekend and, at the same time, drive home what the festival is all about: nature, music, art and community.
This year, the event took place under May’s Full Moon. For many, this signifies a time to peel back the layers of who we are, of letting go, and of getting deep within ourselves to find our true essence. For others, the weekend provided an escape to nature under a moonlit sky. For everyone though, the weekend was a time to come together and to celebrate in a remarkable location. There exists this curious atmosphere about the festival site.
Sitting on a parcel of land within the 180.000 hectares of national park, Wakana boasts incredible natural features like the lake, which comes into its own at sunset, and archaeological remains, such as the neolithic dolmens. It’s wondrous then to know that people have been gathering around this area for thousands of years, dating as far back as the Phoenicians and possibly even longer, and now you and a thousand others are doing so as well.
So when you arrive at Wakana, and if it’s your first time and the music hasn’t yet begun, you wander around to get your bearings and a feel for the place. First, you can’t quite place the feeling. So you take in the surroundings, breathe in and out a number of times, and take a seat overlooking the lake and the hills. And somewhere in that time, it clicks and any worries you might have brought slowly fade away.
Slowly, as more and more people arrive, and as the conversations around you open up circles, the anticipation grows and you’re being drawn into the mix. Then, when the music kicks in and people make their way to dancing, you become part of it. And as night descends, there’s no other place you’d rather be. The Wakana Reunion team have obviously worked hard to weave together the perfect combination of artists to keep the party going.
The music began on the Friday afternoon and continued right through the entire weekend, right past Sunday’s sunset. And even then, when the music was finally cut on the main stage, those that remained pleaded for it to continue, forgetting that they had places to be the next day. And so, the beautiful people at Family Kitchen pumped up their stereo and pumped out the last of the pizzas to keep the feeling alive, to keep the people dancing as one.
To single-out some artists here above others seems crude since the feeling at Wakana is that the artists are a collective. Each artist adding their own element to the journey everybody was on, taking off from where they found the people to destinations found only on arrival. And then, to see so many artists wandering around, mingling, dancing alongside you and the others, even at sunrise, really brought home the feeling that Wakana Reunion is a community.
There’s so much more to be said about Wakana Reunion. From the new spaces — La Gran Yurta used for ceremonies, yoga and meditation and La Palapa used for rest, warmth and sunrise sets — to the visual installations scattered about and, most importantly, to the crowd made up of young and old, of various nationalities, languages and walks of life. So, Wakana Reunion, as far as festivals go, knows what it’s trying to be and this second installment went a long way in showing that a following has most definitely begun. Impossible to forget any of the dj sets especially that of Acid Pauli, Otzeki, Mira or Nickodemus. I still close my eyes and listen to songs like “Her perfect sky” from Marino Canal or “Zamin” from Rasi Z to not mention all the ones that come to my mind
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Marco Antonio Ruiz Hidalgo