Fiesta and My Favs at La Gata Foro Bar

Are you rested? You best be – Season opens tomorrow night with a star-studded cast at The Palm Cabaret with a charity concert for RISE Puerto Vallarta at 9 pm.

However, to back-track a bit, Saturday was busy with a visit to Arte Vallarta Museo for their always fun First Saturday of the Month Fiesta. The galleries looked fabulous with Director Nathalie Herling’s obsession with Day of the Dead altars of all types and sizes. Her stalwart helper, wonderful painter Rober(to) Sosa and often bartender for Museo events, was putting the final touches on a sand painting of a Catrina face on the floor, close to the bar, so he could do both. Baseboards have become handpainted skulls, dozens of ’em, lined up. Watching. It is truly remarkable and will remain eerie and creepy into next month, culminating on November’s First Saturday, which just happens to fall on Dia de Los Muertos proper. So much beguilement, so little time…

David Duvall, dressed to the nines, sang and played piano while we sat with his wife Penny Cameron Culver Clapp, sipped on a special new Muertos red wine, and chatted with so many interesting women, including Colette Zarry, owner of Langostinos resto on the beach. Javier Niño, one of Vallarta’s first famous painters and the new husband of Nathalie, arrived late and greeted everyone warmly. Monumental sculptor Jim Demetro an old, very dear friend, came to the museum as well, always with lovely hugs and extraordinary energy. We enjoyed our time in conversation and catching up on the summer’s news, knowing next month will be crazy busy and we will see one another across the busy courtyard.

I walked with my erudite, cherished friend Sandra Bradley (you can read her metaphysical musings every Monday in Vallarta Mirror) to our crossroad, where we parted ways – hers to go home, me to head out for Saturday Night, Part Two.

I continued to walk all the way up Juarez almost to Woolworth’s, then headed up Allende to Matamoros and La Gata Foro Bar, a tiny bar and performing arts space I have been seeing daily on Facebook lately. When I saw a poster for two of my favorite performers ever, Ale Matus and Dabit Azofeifa (Tromba Vetusta), I knew I had to go check it out. From what I can gather, La Gata Foro (The Cat Forum) has been open for almost ten years, and I have never been. I spoke to Ale before their performance, and she told me La Gata was where she and Dabit created Circoncierto (their amazing, long-running matinee at Act2PV) a few years ago. They love it so well that they perform there whenever there is a hole in their schedule. The atmosphere is eclectic, perfectly cabaret: intimate and cozy, with a limited, inexpensive food and drink menu.

Saturday night was packed – maybe 30 people, and out of them, I counted all the Anglos on one hand. I am sure that’s the point. Quite a few performers (and members of Artist Spotlight) were in the audience, including Isa Zuleta, Jacob Ordoñez Rodriguez, and Montse. Isabel and Montse each sang a song with Ale, all the while being backed up beautifully on accordion by Dabit – an added Bohemian/Gypsy atmospheric touch. Paul Crist sat with me, shared some future plans he is hard at work building to become reality. We both fell into Alejandra’s bewitching spell as she sang songs by Spanish immigrant to Mexico, Rocio Dúcal. Melancholy, broken-hearted, intimate songs that filled Ale’s eyes with tears more than once. She told me after the show that every time she sings with Dabit playing for her, she falls a little more in love with him. Nothing can beat that.