/ARTS WEEKLY/ MUSIC-COLOMBIA: Song from Nature’s Depths

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

María Isabel García

BOGOTA, Oct 7 2003 (IPS) - The song of the humpbacked whales on their trek from Antarctica to Colombia’s Pacific coast is melded with the voice of mezzo-soprano Martha Senn in the seven-movement cantata “Pacificanto”, premiered 35 metres underground.

Composed by Venezuelan Huáscar Barradas and performed on piano by Colombian Pablo Arévalo, “Pacificanto” incorporates video effects put together by Colombian theatre director Rolf Abderhalden and is conceived as a “vital metaphor of the human being”.

The artists drew on different Afro-Latino rhythms and added in texts by Chilean Nobel Literature laureate Pablo Neruda and by Colombian playwright Nicolás Buenaventura.

Also interlaced throughout the performance are fragments of Embera, Waunana, Awapict and Cuna, indigenous languages from the Pacific Basin, mixed with the sounds of conch shells and ocarinas, a wind instrument of the pre-Columbian inhabitants of Cuzco.

The common thread through all of this is the rhythm of the live broadcast heartbeats of humpback whales in the Pacific Ocean.

The spectacle drew more than 4,000 people to four performances last week in the Zipaquirá Salt Cathedral, built into a salt mine that millions of years ago was a sea bed. The unusual venue is located 40 km northwest of Bogotá.

The result was an “electro-acoustic experience” in which the languages of art, science, nature and technology converged, says singer Senn, whose own heartbeats were amplified along with those of the whales.

The intention was to reproduce the cycle of creation of music and of song that imitates the sounds of nature, while the instruments serve to “sing” the human voice, explained the Swiss-born mezzo-soprano who has made Colombia her home.

According to Senn, the performance was a “virtual return” of the whales to their habitat of millions of years ago, when what is today the Andes Mountains was covered by ocean.

“I wanted to show that science and art can be united to produce something harmonious,” says Jorge Reynolds, an engineer dedicated to cardiology. The idea of a collective montage began to take shape in his mind three years ago, he told IPS.

A pioneer in whale heart research as a basis for human applications, Reynolds was one of the inventors 45 years ago of the pacemaker, an electric stimulator that regulates heart contractions, used worldwide by people who suffer heart arrhythmia.

The cantata “Pacificanto”, which in the final phase involved the labour of more than 400 people and the sponsorship of 35 state and private firms, has meanings that transcend art, said the respected Colombian engineer.

“I believe that science, technology and art often can do what politics can’t: unite countries,” commented Reynolds, adding with a certain amount of satisfaction, “We have proven that it is not all bad news coming out of Colombia.”

The synchronicity of art and science and the technological display at the Zipaquirá Salt Cathedral are proof that “in this country we can develop cutting edge technology,” in devices like electrocardiographs, echocardiographs and photocardiographs to study “these marvellous sea mammals that can live 120 years,” he said.

Every year, in July and August, the humpback whales journey 8,000 km from Antarctica to the temperate waters off Colombia’s Pacific coast, where they mate and give birth. They head out to make the return trip in September or October.

The sea temperatures of 14 to 16 degrees centigrade are ideal for the whale calves born in the area because they have not yet developed the protective layer of fat. They would not be able to stand the cold of the southern oceans.

“Our interest lies in the fact that knowing and learning from whales, we can apply that knowledge to the benefit of humans,” said Reynolds, who oversees an interdisciplinary team of researchers in the project for tracking whales via satellite.

Ocean buoys are equipped with devices to record whale song – only males produce the harmonic sounds, which are heard during courting and mating – and can also be used to study the chemical makeup of the sea, its salinity, currents and temperature, he told IPS.

To communicate, the whales look for underwater channels formed by ideal temperature, density and salinity that are most conducive to sound, he explained.

For example, the cold Humboldt Current acts as a river within the ocean, and whales utilise it in their travels, said Reynolds.

In their endeavour to integrate art and science, the creators of “Pacificanto” – who were not paid for their work – added a social component to the experience.

The revenues from concert admission tickets, with prices ranging from 17 to 53 dollars, and from television broadcast rights and sales of compact discs and videos will go to foundations for children with heart problems and to programmes for minors who have been displaced by the Colombian civil war.

An estimated 5,000 Colombian children are born each year with heart ailments, and the armed conflict has forced some 200,000 rural families to abandon their lands.