Robert Mirabal & Rare Tribal Mob Winter Holiday Show, 2023
Only those who have embraced the fruits of winter can grow through the crust of resistance.
(Originally published on Dec 6, 2023, on author’s website.)
A born water chaser, Robert Mirabal studied earth's liquid life source in his childhood farming community more out of survival than blooming curiosity. Understanding the vital energy source promotes growth (movement), he studied water in human form through the fluidity of tribal and cultural music, song, and dance from all corners of the earth. The result of his global submersion is the spirited ability to integrate his ancestral sounds with elements of contemporary and amplified wavelengths to promote movement in otherwise stagnant waters (stuck people). Robert Mirabal fully embraces human nature and its adaptive instinct as he illustrates, through his storytelling, that still water is more often than not, bad water.
Grammy awarded, twice nominated, globally befriended, mentored, trained, educated, and produced, with an unrivaled zest for all life forms, and the earthly instinct to select only the finest seeds for the next season, Robert Mirabal is a living human blueprint of organic life and how it evolves to become our power throughhuman suffering. His magic, and swagger, drips heavy in funk and soul, largely from the 80's/90's New York funk scene that operated on continued influences of the 60's and 70's social inequality uprising. To say Mirabal is fluent in music, cuts short the human spirit's involvement in it all; he is fluent in life. His art is setting it to music, so that others may grow.
Mirabal's vision, and the constant creative flow within him, can be performed, received, consumed, and interpreted, anywhere on the planet. Mirabal has replicated water with music.
For his post-pandemic public return, Robert Mirabal chose Artha Meadors to be the musical director for the select Rare Tribal Mob, and the famed winter shows up in Taos, one of which I attended. The fascinating ingredient to the winter shows are the ever-changing supporting cast of brilliant musicians, selected for their ability to weave sounds while keeping their own genetic creativity intact.
A seed that struggles to break the crust of earth's soil will grow to be healthy and vibrant; a seed that fails to break the resistance will never fruit.
Finding light and inspiration all over the globe, his refined Rare Tribal Mob has the daunting task of shaping the magic into something that represents Mother Earth while being groovy and funky enough to dance to, as movement soothes the soul and illuminates the way through.
Robert Mirabal is a quantum connection to the old world, before possession. Before skin pigmentation became color. Humans, in tune with the seasons, cultivated the land, nurtured one another, and returned in kind the bounty of life offered by existence. Mirabal's physical mind is in the here and now but his expressive soul is Mother Earth herself.
Adept at weaving several continental and indigenous musical influences throughout any period in history, Mirabal performs a trippy catalog of blended ancient tribal sounds poured into a corn grinder with 60's psychedelic rock, New York's nostalgic funk-bending, and proud ceremonial wonderment influenced by Japanese Taiko drumming. "This is the best way I can show you what's in my head" Mirabal, after completing a one-is-earth-with-music arrangement, through his vision of life, shaped by several million years of spiritual human existence flowing into the arroyos of his Taos mountain performances.
In the noblest of musical acts to promote growth while selecting the most promising seeds, Robert Mirabal, with his famed flute in one hand and humanity's hope in the other, chose select artists to share the stage and production alike, to add influence and sensationalism to delivery, and vibrance to sound and display to help tell the story of water, and his lifelong dedication to its energy.
The Rare Tribal Mob for Winter Holiday Show 2023:
Randy Sanchez on electric guitar out of Santa Fe and with the masters, Nosotros.
Ryan Clement masterful on keys out of Albuquerque.
Artha Meadors, musical director, bass, and synthesized wizardry out of Albuquerque.
Arnaldo Acosta on drums and a hefty array of tribal percussions, from Dominican Republic.
Robert's three daughters (The Mirabal Sisters) shared the stage and gave lightning effects to the message of water, and human life, illuminating the power of Mother Earth herself through the divine feminine voice and captivating, traditional dress and jewelry.
Evan Trujillo, Emileah Luján, and long time friend, Christopher Luján, graced the crowd with their immaculate celebration of dance, with Mistyrainflower (Emileah) being a rare woman hoop dancer. All movements were incorporated to move the soul, often imitating majestic creatures, rhythmic in nature, healing in nurture.
Performing their own cultural song and drum, Hail Creek Drummers and Singers also gave the crowd a fun and cheeky blend of traditional voice with modern pop lyrics and other hilarious shenanigans.
I didn't fully understand winter until Robert Mirabal painted both a metaphorical and musical masterpiece on a backdrop that resembles a roadmap to peace and acceptance of human life. All life forms. Mirabal tells of the time in the pueblo when everyone came in from the fields after the harvest, especially in the weeks leading up to the harsh, snowy winter to gather together not only to stay warm, but to enjoy song and story, and one another, allowing the energy to pass through everyone as the coyotes sang and winter yielded to no one.
I drove up to Taos, not knowing what to expect, my preferred process/method of listening to live music. The evening changed my perspective on the once damned winters months of our hemispheric season. I can now understand, through music, as the artist intended, the beauty of winter in its natural and nurturing state of fruitful, dark warmth.
It's where we grow the soul, with others.
Stringer
Special mentions to:
Avokado Artists for producing the Winter Holiday Show; follow them on socials for more amazing photos of the event. Website: https://www.avokadoartists.org/
Taos Center for the Arts for hosting the magical performance of unity and growth.
Expert sound technician, Omar Rane, for an immaculate array of depth and clarity throughout the evening. I still have chills writing this, thank you, truly.