Cuban-Irish artist Qbanaa is one of the acts performing at Creativity on Tap: Where Bold Ideas Meet Iconic Spaces, an eclectic series of music and comedy events at this year's Dublin Fringe Festival.
Hosted by Guinness Open Gate Brewery and Roe & Co Distillery, she joins a line-up that includes comics Shane Daniel Byrne, Tony Cantwell and Alison Spittle alongside musical hot tickets SexyTadhg and Tolu Makay.
We asked Qbanaa for her choice cultural picks...
FILM
I'm a big classic film person. If there's ever a movie, I would recommend it’s Spirit, the animated film from 2002. It’s a timeless story that evokes the same emotions as watching a movie like Bambi or The Land Before Time. It’s about a young horse that gets lost and taken in by a native American but tries to find his way home. It's a pretty straightforward story, but the journey he takes is really magical, the topics of family and home are very prominent and the soundtrack by Bryan Adams and Hans Zimmer is otherworldly. I watch it every couple months and it brings the same strong emotions every time. It’s the perfect blend of emotion, thrill and adventure.
MUSIC
This year I've been listening to a lot more Spanish music, particularly flamenco. I got bored of music for a while until I started digging into this genre, it’s my obsession. The Antonio Reyes and Diego del Morao album Que Suene El Cante makes me want to run away to Seville. I love the dramatics and the energy in both lyrics and instrumentation.
We need your consent to load this Spotify contentWe use Spotify to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
BOOK
My favourite book is A Simple Intervention by Yael Inokai. It’s about a psych ward where the doctor creates this ‘ground-breaking’ intervention. Two nurses, who treat patients using this method find it is a lot darker than advertised. That narrative parallels the love story between these two nurses. I bought it at a queer book shop in East London on a music trip half a year ago. It’s a short but gripping novel I lent it to my friend on our surf trip to Morocco, and she and I agreed we’ve never finished a book faster in our lives.
THEATRE
0800 Cupid by Eimer Dineen and THISISPOPBABY. I stumbled across this in the Project Arts Centre one night, feeling quite low and alone in my struggles - I saw it on a story and thought "Why not, it looks colourful and queer, I’m in". I’d never cried so much with so many strangers. It's the story of Eimer's life through her drag persona. I, and other people felt so seen, it’s so real and raw. There’s a certain scene with a bee infestation I don’t want to give too much away which is insane but I'd keep an eye out for this play and anything Eimer does.
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
TV
I actually don’t watch many television shows. Unless it's RTE ;)
GIG
Apart from my debut performance at the Fringe Festival in the Roe & Co distillery, I’m running my own Soul Juice event in October. It’s an improvised jam session, less about the Qbanaa show but more about building a community of neo-soul/jazz fusion musicians. There’s a house band that opens, you bring your instruments and sign up at the door, then every 15 minutes a musician changes. It’s a different level of love in those events, there’s no agenda but to communicate through improvising music. You don’t need to be a standard jazz head though those are welcome, jazz fuses with a lot of other genres - a lot of black music. It welcomes all cultures and music backgrounds.
ART
Not really an exhibition but the botanical gardens. I try to go to one in every country I visit. It’s my safe space and I love reading about different plants and seeing the ones in Dublin bloom come summertime. They held a light exhibition during the winter, which was surreal.
RADIO/PODCAST
Mel Robbins' podcast, I love my self-help podcasts.
We need your consent to load this Spotify contentWe use Spotify to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
TECH
Udemy. Great for learning new skills.
THE NEXT BIG THING...
Buying physical copies of music again and long-form content. Bring back music videos and long YouTube vlogs. I sound like an old woman!
Qbanaa takes centre stage at the Roe & Co Distillery, Dublin, on 17th September, as part of this year's Dublin Fringe Festival - find out more here
