A Night in White

On September 22, Madrid hosted its second annual "Night in White", a city-wide, all night art festival. In Spanish, it's called La Noche en Blanco, and Paris, Riga, Rome, and Brussels have their own Night during the fall as well. Theoretically, it's an awesome idea; open all the museums for free, hold art exhibitions and performances (acting, dancing, concerts, experimental art) in traditional and non-traditional venues (outdoors and indoors), and have simultaneous events going on all over the city until the wee hours of the morning (also, all free). Madrid is a great place for it, as it is a city of night owls to begin with. But ay, there's the rub; the ubiquity of the night life was a double-edged sword. There was overwhelming participation, but poor logistical support for the kind of numbers involved.

But first, the highlight. I didn't get started until about 11:00, as my flat had a big going away dinner for one of our flatmates (one of the girls I'd become closest to, the one who invited me to Toledo). And by big, I mean in all dimensions; lots of people, lots of food, lots of time:-). Afterwards, I met up with some friends at Gran Via, one of the main arteries of the city. Most of the performances had already ended, so I didn't get to see most of what looked interesting to me in the hundred-page program that was distributed all over the city. The program itself was overwhelming. So much to see and do, with everything scheduled against about 20 other things. They had to divide the city into zones in order to fit everything on maps. Finally, I saw a capsule for an "aerial ballet" that began at 11:45, so my friends Alex and Jen and I raced to the metro in the hopes of making it. We were worried we wouldn't be able to find it, but it is kind of hard to miss people flopping around 4 meters (about 13 feet) above the ground on flexible poles. So we did make the last 20 minutes, and it was pretty damn amazing.

Once the ballet was over, we headed back to the metro with the idea of regrouping in a more central location (the performance took place a bit north of the city center). The metro, however, was unbelievably crowded. We literally had to push our way onto the next train, and even then we 'lost' Alex. She didn't make it onto the train through the throng of people. It was quite cinematic; Alex, her hands up against the glass, trying to tell us something and us, watching helplessly as the train pulled away. . .Luckily, we weren't in the kind of dire, dramatic situation you would expect this sort of scene to represent in a movie, and I was kind of bemused by the whole thing.

The term "packed like sardines" never felt more applicable to a situation than to the condition of the train we were on. I didn't need to hold onto anything to brace myself against the jerky movements of the car--when it moved, my body didn't because it was crammed so tightly between other people. And then, the train stopped in the middle of a tunnel. . .I wasn't panicked, but I was a bit worried that people would start fainting or throwing up or fighting if we didn't start moving again soon. And, as I later found out, this is exactly what happened on some of the many other metro trains that experienced stoppages throughout the night. Our train starting moving after about 7 minutes, but we had friends who were stuck for half an hour in a similarly packed train, and some very unpleasant things happened in that hot, cramped space.

The handling (or mishandling) of the metro was one of the major complaints that popped up in the newspapers the next day. People were equally as unhappy with the enormous lines for everything; it was hard to take advantage of any museums or art installations when the lines to get in were hours' long. I was lucky in that the performance I saw didn't have limited seating; most events did. Some people I knew spent the night walking around and not actually seeing or doing anything related to La Noche En Blanco due to the long waits and tight scheduling.

Once we reunited with Alex (we just waited at our destination station for the next train we knew she would be on), the three of us had a notion of heading to a 'twister art' exhibit in my neighborhood, but as we walked down the street, the thickness of the crowd enveloped us. At this point, it was about 2:30 in the morning, and the streets were so strewn with litter it looked like we were walking through a dumpster. There were still people of all stripes out; older couples, some families, tourists. For the most part, though, it was people our age, which was perfectly fine, but there was little programming left (despite La Noche's publicity as an all-nighter) and the party atmosphere was starting to turn into a drunk, hazy boredom.

The strangest part was the sheer number of people. I had this feeling of detachment as I walked down the street, similar to how I felt at the Beltane Fire Festival in Edinburgh (that's another story); darkness, but enough dim light to see all the activity, sounds of bottles breaking and yelling and so many people people people. I didn't feel we were in danger or anything, but it was surreal. The street we were on had a slight downhill tilt, so we were able to see how far the mass stretched; I'd never seen anything like it. And this was just in my little corner of the city. It's hard to describe this feeling, where you cease to be aware of your physical person and feel as though you're observing humanity from some kind of omnicient perspective--right in the middle of it, but not feeling like part of it. I felt like a character out of some existential novel:-).

We finally did find our destination, a 'hands on' art installation that had disintegrated into a disappointing mess of fingerpaint in a similarly disheveled storefront. I think we saw it as a symbol of what remained of La Noche festivities. We decided to call it a night and headed back to my place, where my friends caught a cab home.

Overall, La Noche had mixed reviews from the citizens of Madrid. Everyone seems to agree that this kind of thing is worth doing, but that it must be done more efficiently, taking into account the scale and planning accordingly. I think the level of artistic coordination involved was an achievement in itself, and there was alot about Madrid's Night that was impressive. Also, it's only the second year, so I guess there are still some kinks to work out. I would be really interested to see what the Night In White looks like in the other cities. Maybe one day I'll find out. . .:-).