The Sikeiros Piano Bar will celebrate five decades

For more than two decades, the Sikeiros Piano Bar was one of the bastions of bohemianism in the capital of the Mexican Republic. First, 14 years at the Polyforum Cultural Siqueiros and then another seven at the Marquis Reforma hotel, he had among his regulars figures such as the writer Gabriel García Márquez, the chronicler Carlos Monsiváis, the Spanish singers Joaquín Sabina and Joan Manuel Serrat, as well as the Mexican composer Armando Manzanero, among others.

Presences that were occasionally joined by the Colombian narrator Álvaro Mutis, the Cuban Silvio Rodríguez, the Madrid singer Diego The crayfish, the Venezuelan singer and actor Carlos Mata and several of the international musicians and artists who visited Mexican lands, as well as countless figures from national public life, such as the conductor and actor Xavier López Chabelo, the dancer Yolanda Montes Tongolele, and the actors Alma Muriel and Plutarco Haza.

In addition to the children of the night, the frequent attendance of politicians and public officials was not unusual, even from other countries, such as Belisario Betancur, president of Colombia between 1982 and 1986, who attended one of García Márquez’s birthdays and registered his name in the vast anecdote of the place.

Magdalena Rodríguez, owner of that emblematic space, says that Betancur took the writer to a secluded corner to blurt out to him: Hey, Gabo, do you already know that the whores in Colombia are going to sue you? To which the questioned person responded: Yes, the ones that don’t appear in my novel.

The former Colombian president and the 1982 Nobel Prize winner in Literature jokingly alluded to Memory of my sad whores, book by the latter that was even released in that piano bar, as happened later with another of his titles, I’m not here to say a speech, in an unprecedented event, since the native of Aracataca did not present his works.

Such was the friendship between the author and the Tampico cultural promoter responsible for Sikeiros, arising from a chance meeting in a restaurant in the south of Mexico City, which over time was consolidated with a compadrazgo.

Gabo and Meche (Mercedes Barba, Nobel’s wife) are godparents to the oldest of my grandchildrenMagdalena Rodríguez boasts in an interview with The Day, in which he explains that three years ago that epicenter of the capital’s bohemia closed as a consequence of the pandemic, although he considers it a impasse, Well, he reveals that today he is considering several proposals to reopen it.

Next year will be the silver anniversary of Sikeiros, so I have to get a house to celebrate these 25 yearspoints out the businesswoman, who considers the Sikeiros Piano Bar as a lucky accident in her life, since she never imagined herself being responsible for a place of that nature.

She says that she has always been a cultural promoter, an activity that she carried out not only as an advisor to several mayors of her native Tampico, where one of her greatest achievements was bringing the dance legend Alicia Alonso and the National Ballet of Cuba, but also highlights initiatives own, like a ladies’ university, my Higher School of Art, where I taught a diploma in art historyand the creation of the José Revueltas literature workshop in the prison of that capital, which he considers one of his greatest satisfactions.

Unexpected liability

In 1998 he moved to Mexico City, where he has resided since then. She arrived as director of the Tamaulipas House of Culture in this city, a position she held for almost two years, until she approached the Polyforum Siqueiros.

It never crossed my mind to take responsibility for a place like this. I arrived at the Polyforum intending to get closer to the cultural world of that space; That’s how I met Dr. (Manuel) Suárez, the owner of it, and he invited me to stay with the piano bar; I had no idea what one of these places was, nor about the drinks, I didn’t know anything. Today I can’t imagine life without a piano bar, honestly. So I’m waiting for a house to emerge for Sikeiros, because I would like to celebrate his silver anniversary.

Experiences, memories and anecdotes come flooding back to the memory of Magdalena Rodríguez, who is greeted with great esteem by the staff of the Marquis Reforma hotel, where the conversation with this newspaper takes place.

It’s always nice to return to where you were happyhe says in reference to that place, headquarters of the aforementioned bohemian center in its last six years, after it moved from the Polyforum Siqueiros in 2014 due to the project to transform it.

In addition to the collection of more than 200 caricatures of celebrities made by Luis Carreño that adorned that piano bar, one of those memories is that of the duet formed by journalists Jacobo Zabludovsky – one of his closest friends, along with his wife, Sarita. – and Guillermo Ochoa to sing Sorry, by Pedro Flores Córdova, around the piano.

There are also fresh images of a smiling Gabo entering or leaving amid applause from those present, and he clarifies that the inventor of Macondo never sang in public, the most he did was accompany a song of his taste with the movement of his lips, whiskey in hand.

Others are from the various occasions in which Joaquín Sabina “threw his pigeons”, and how he climbed onto the chairs so that the audience could photograph and record him. He also remembers when Armando Manzanero asked him for permission to accompany the singing of those gathered on the piano. In short, experiences and memories that make it possible to write memoirs, a task on which he is already working.

This period of inactivity at the Sikeiros Piano Bar has not been wasted time for Magdalena Rodríguez, who organized a diploma course in the history of Mexican culture, which is about to begin. It will cover everything from muralism, opera and literature to political and strategic analysis. The sessions will be from April 16 to June 25, on Tuesdays, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. (more information on WhatsApp 55-2300-4309).

“Sadly, this bohemian culture is a bit out of use in Mexico City; To say everything: there is no Sikeiros. To begin with, I invited you to live a night drunk with stars. The coexistence that occurs around music is unique. Gabo said it: ‘the only thing better than music is talking about music’, and sharing it,” he concluded.