Shakira is Live and On the Mark

In order to prepare the world for the arrival of her new album later this year, Shakira has released a new DVD: Shakira: Live and Off the Record. The DVD documents one of the concerts and what was going on behind the scenes of her 2002 world tour, Tour of the Mongoose. While there are several elements that make this DVD worth watching, what sticks out above everything is its charm. Whether performing on stage or speaking to the camera, Shakira smiles throughout and exudes such excitement that you would think this was her first time doing a tour. As she performs for the crowd in Rotterdam, Holland, her excitement to be on stage is infused into the crowd and as the camera pans out over the throng of people, you can see them reacting to her emotion—all are smiling, dancing, and some are even crying out of sheer joy to see Shakira.

Fans of Shakira during her pre-Laundry Service days get a chance to see the artist they first heard on the radio in 1995, when her first major album, Pies descalzos (Bare Feet), came out. During the concert, she strips down everything to just perform—yes, there is much of her signature belly-dancing throughout the show, but there are no back-up dancers or huge costume changes or anything not related to the music. She plays the whole show in bare feet, which is not only a direct reference to Pies descalzos, but is representative of what Shakira is: while she may at times be just another pop star with glitz and endorsement deals, when it comes down to it, she’s nothing more than a performer. Shakira knows this quite well and so she lets herself be who she really is on stage and present each song the way it should be sung.

Even though not every performance from the show is included on the DVD, the ones that are successfully portray this side of Shakira that she wants the world to see. Each song is fun to listen to and to watch, but the best performance on the DVD by far is the final one, “Whenever, Wherever.” Although this song, her first English single, brought the death to the Spanish-speaking Shakira that we used to know and love, it’s an undeniably good song and even better live. It’s surprisingly one of the few songs in English that the audience actually sings along with (although they manage to sing every song in Spanish) and she makes it an interactive experience by flying above the crowd in a crane. This is the last performance on the DVD and is the climax of the entire show—there are no signs of exhaustion, but instead Shakira shows pure enjoyment and energy to sing the song, and you can’t help but want to jump up and try (I emphasize the word “try”) to shake it right along with her.

While the concert section and documentary fall under two different genres, there are certain aspects of Shakira that can be found in both. The documentary was surprising, even to me (her crazy fan who knows too much about her), just as the concert would be surprising to anyone who still thought of Shakira as the Colombian Britney. The documentary shows Shakira, who once said in an interview that although she doesn’t curse in English because she’s such a good Catholic girl, cursing up a storm as she’s treated for tendonitis (from too much belly-dancing . . . who would have thought it was possible?). It also portrays her as a diva, slamming the door on her manager after he denies her request to do a show in Argentina. Besides all of this, the film shows a woman who’s passionately aggressive: while in Colombia, she holds a press conference to address the issue of lack of children’s education and the sincerity with which she speaks lets you know that she’s a no-BS-I’ll-do-whatever-it-takes kind of gal.

The best moments of the concert and documentary are the unexpected and intimate ones, where you know you’re getting a glimpse of Shakira that you wouldn’t be able to see in any of her booty-shaking-mud-crawling videos. However, Shakira and her producers decided to throw in a few staged moments to the DVD, which make it weaker than it should be. The documentary opens up with Shakira rolling around in grass, blowing bubbles, which is completely irrelevant to everything in the world. I couldn’t take it seriously, and wasn’t even sure if I was supposed to. At another point, Shakira and her band stand on the streets of Paris singing a Bob Marley song, but it’s unclear why exactly they felt the need to do that. These moments that were taped specifically for the DVD are unnecessary and frankly, too comical in respect to the rest of the documentary.

Overall, the DVD successfully conveys what the Tour of the Mongoose was trying to do: establish Shakira as someone more than the belly-dancing Latin Britney trying to “conquer the Anglo-market” as she says. For those who didn’t catch her in concert, and even for those who did (i.e. me), the concert and behind-the-scenes footage capture many sides of a very likeable person. Whether she’s playing guitar, harmonica, or drums, or whether she’s coming up with a new metaphor, Shakira knows exactly what she’s doing and she’s genuine about being a performer. Even the camera-men caught on to what Shakira is—during the concert, there isn’t an overwhelming focus on her butt and hips (except during the “Objection” performance, which is understandable) but rather the camera concentrates on Shakira’s interaction with the crowd and her general demeanor. This was the point of her tour, and since as a result people have begun to recognize her authenticity if they hadn’t already, she’s given room to expand as an artist.