/ARTS WEEKLY/ CULTURE-LATIN AMERICA: Voice for the Voiceless

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, May 18 2004 (IPS) - It’s the antithesis of contests that manufacture musical stars to feed the commercial entertainment circuit – it couldn’t be any other way if the idea comes from Argentine pianist Miguel Angel Estrella, UNESCO goodwill ambassador.

His new project seeks to promote music and dance – especially the deeply rooted styles from Latin America that have been ignored, cast aside, and are in danger of disappearing.

"It’s about vindicating the poor, the marginalized, who kept alive what is their culture; people who speak to us from the roots, who have achieved a synthesis of centuries in the traditional practices of their pre-Columbus ancestors and what came afterwards," Estrella summarised in an IPS interview in Buenos Aires, where he launched his project ‘The voice of the voiceless’.

The project takes off this year with Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay, but without a look at the political map.

The focus is on cultural regions that transcend those borders. In each region, the aim is to seek out music and dance expressions that are "scarcely disseminated in commercial circuits and/or are found to be in danger of disappearing."

A committee of experts in each region will assess the participants in the selection process, "respecting their dignity and without dragging anyone down," Estrella said.

Afterwards, a pre-selection will take place, and finally five individuals or groups will be chosen, one from each cultural region, for a performance to take place at the Paris headquarters of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), followed by a 10-city tour in Europe in 2006.

"This has nothing to do with that ephemeral cultural nonsense created by marketing. It is the antithesis of that. We want to vindicate those who developed a cultural expression over centuries and keep it alive, because that segment has no space, and there is a risk that it will disappear," said the pianist, who since 1986 has served as a UNESCO goodwill ambassador.

A year ago, Estrella was also named Argentina’s representative to the U.N. agency, and since then has met with delegates from other South American countries to put the project in motion.

"There is a great deal of enthusiasm. I have faith – I think we are going to flood our region with dignity, with the certainty that the deeper cultures are valid and are deserving of a place."

Estrella is a noted pianist, who lives six months of the year in Argentina and six in Paris since he went into exile in the 1970s, after spending two years imprisoned by the Uruguayan dictatorship of 1973-1984.

His crime was that he played piano in the poorest neighbourhoods of Argentina and Uruguay, in prisons and in hospitals. During his imprisonment, the authorities threatened to cut off his hands with an electric saw, he recalls.

He defines himself as a "social musician", a long way from the stereotype of the classical virtuoso. Like other pianists, he likes to play Chopin, Brahms or Beethoven, but he prefers to do so for people who do not frequent the formal world of concert halls.

Estrella is also a great enthusiast of the region’s cultural traditions, and that is why in 1982 he created the Fundaci?n M?sica Esperanza (Musical Hope Foundation), which holds music workshops in more than 50 countries.

"Only singers and dancers who are not part of the commercial cultural market can participate," he noted. The artists must register in their respective regions, "and if they don’t, we will have to go looking for them wherever they are and explain that all of their expenses will be paid by the project."

The members of the jury will act "with complete transparency" and will have to provide each contestant with a "critical but humanist report… with no intellectual terms, suggesting ways they can improve, as a means to returning dignity to those who participate, so they know that someone is listening to them, is interested in what they are doing and writes a report about it, even if they are not chosen."

In a second phase, to begin in 2006, " and depending on the results of the first," the plan will be extended to the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean, always with the aim of preserving cultural heritage in its different forms, with a focus on genres that have been forgotten or are little known despite their long histories.

Estrella estimates the project will cost some 300,000 dollars in travel expenses for the contestants, from the initial exploratory phase through the European tour. Some of the potential financing sources include the UNESCO seed funds and special contributions from industrialised countries like Spain, France, Japan and Netherlands.

"We want to recuperate the forgotten aspects of those cultures that do not find a place in the commercial arena and give them a chance to express their art in Europe," explained Estrella – the opposite of manufacturing stars in order to launch them in the entertainment market and reap the profits.