La Movida Madrileña

Madrid at night. The Movida people coined the now famous war-cries of the city: "Madrid nunca duerme" ("Madrid never sleeps"), "Esta noche todo el mundo a la calle" ("Tonight everybody in the street") or "Madrid me mata" ("Madrid kills me").

La Movida Madrileña (English: The Madrilenian groove scene) was a countercultural movement that took place mainly in Madrid during the Spanish transition after Francisco Franco's death in 1975. It represented the resurrection of the economy in Spain and the emergence of a new Spanish identity.

Although this hedonistic cultural wave was born in Madrid, it emerged in parallel in other Spanish urban centers, such as Barcelona, Bilbao and Vigo. It was characterized by freedom of expression, transgression of the taboos imposed by the Franco Regime, use of recreational drugs, the "coming out" of the Madrilenian cheli and the "pasota" dialect and a new spirit of freedom on the streets.

Famous representatives

The Movida comprised many art movements; Pedro Almodóvar became the best known example internationally after his later success as a film director.

Music

Many bands from the capital city contributed to the spread of the movement, such as Kaka de Luxe, Alaska y los Pegamoides (fronted by singer Alaska, also hostess of the children’s TV program ‘’La Bola de Cristal’’), Pop Decó / Paraíso, Radio Futura, Nacha Pop, Los Secretos, Ejecutivos Agresivos, los Elegantes, Los Modelos, Tótem, Aviador Dro, Los Bólidos, Los Nikis, Los Zombies, Parálisis Permanente, Derribos Arias, Glutamato Ye-ye, Alphaville, RH+, La Mode, Las Chinas, Rubi y los Casinos, Gabinete Caligari, Los Coyotes, Fahrenheit 451, Los Monaguillosh, Décima Víctima, Flash Strato, Los Pistones, Alaska y Dinarama and many more.
Occasionally bands from other Spanish cities are considered as having taken part of the “Movida”, like Siniestro Total and Golpes Bajos from Galicia, Farmacia de Guardia from Murcia, and Loquillo, El Último de la Fila and Desechables from Barcelona. In moods, looks and attitude, the sound resembled the British New Wave and the Neue Deutsche Welle, sometimes mimicking styles such as New Romantic.
Some consider also the pioneers of Spanish tecno-pop Mecano, Azul y Negro, Tino Casal, La Unión and others. Leño, Barón Rojo, Obús, Asfalto, La Polla Records, and other contemporary Spanish rock bands are usually not included on the “Movida” tag, as their sound was harder and they rejected what the movement represented.

Film and Television

Film director Pedro Almodóvar comically reflected the messiness of the freedom of those years, especially in his first films, such as Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas del montón (1980), and Laberinto de pasiones (1982). Other important artists in the Movida were the director Iván Zulueta with his masterpiece Arrebato, Fernando Trueba with the characteristic Ópera prima (1980) or Fernando Colomo.
TV programs like La Bola de Cristal, hosted by singer Alaska and La Edad de Oro, hosted by Paloma Chamorro contributed to spread the aesthetics of the movement to a wider audience.

Photography and Painting

Graphic artists like Ceesepe, El Hortelano and Nazario Luque, and photographers like Ouka Leele, Agust, Miguel Trillo, Pablo Pérez Mínguez “PPM” or Alberto García-Alix founded together one of the first art collectives, called “Cascorro Factory”, where many of the seminal ideas for the “Movida” took place. Also, photographer Gorka de Duo accompanied artist Andy Warhol and had an exhibition with Robert Mapplethorpe in the Fernando Vijande gallery.

Painters Patricia Gadea and husband Juan Ugalde formed later in New York the art group Estrujenbank, and Costus (Enrique Naya Igueravide & José Carrero Galofré) and Guillermo Pérez Villalta, from Cádiz, and Valencian Javier Mariscal were also essential visionaries for the movement.

Fashion

Internationally acclaimed fashion designer Ágatha Ruiz de la Prada was a pioneer of the style worn during the "Movida."

Graffiti

Artists like Muelle created a unique form of street art, later described as “graffiti autóctono madrileño”.

Literature

Writers Gregorio Morales, Vicente Molina Foix, Luis Antonio de Villena, Javier Barquín, José Tono Martínez, Luis Mateo Díez, José Antonio Gabriel y Galán, José Luis Moreno-Ruiz and Ramón Mayrata were prominent in the “Tertulia de Creadores”, which were a cycle of meetings, lectures, debates and happenings that took place in the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid between 1983 and 1984. Many of them, as Gregorio Morales, José Tono Martínez or Ramón Mayrata, were regular collaborators of the art magazine La luna de Madrid. Also, Oscar Mariné's magazine Madrid Me Mata (Madrid Kills Me) contributed to the creation of a common identity.
Another important figure outside the artistic world of the Movida was journalist Francisco Umbral, writer for the newspaper El País, who wrote about and documented the movement.

Comics

The magazine Madriz acted as a post-modern mixer for the new tendencies between 1984 and 1987. Artists like Araguez, Arranz, Camús, Asun Balzola, Federico del Barrio, Juan Calonge, Guillem Cifré, El Cubri, Santiago Cueto, Kiko Feria, Carlos Giménez, Guzmán el Bueno, Juan Jiménez, Ana Juan, LPO, Marcos, Martín, Ana Miralles, Rafa Negrete, José Manuel Nuevo, OPS, Raúl, Rubén, Sento, Luis Serrano, Carlos Torrente, Fernando Vicente graced its pages.

Afterwards

Many films and books have depicted the Movida, like the 2005 film El Calentito directed by Chus Gutiérrez. Also, the musical Hoy No Me Puedo Levantar, composed by Nacho Cano, former member of Mecano, portrays a love story with the Movida as cultural background, and explains the condition of young people in this period, trying to survive in Madrid under the shadow of drugs and AIDS.

See also

• Spanish society after the democratic transition

External links

• Photogallery of the photograph Gorka De Duo