All you fans of Llamellin (Nelida's home town, in Ancash, Peru), the wait is over (except it's only in Spanish right now, however Nelida is seeking a volunteer to translate to English...
Happy to report that two of my favorite intercultural organizations - Global Exchange and South American Explorers - are talking about launching a Reality Tour in Peru beginning in 2006.
I traveled to Cuba with Global Exchange in 2000 - back in the days when you could - to study traditional Cuban dance/drumming there. While S.A. Explorers has been a home away from home in Lima, and a Soy Andina sponsor.
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S O Y A N D E - N E W S
A search for roots and dance in Peru
June 27, 2005
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I. EVENTS - All MEDIA, AROUND THE GLOBE!
- Radio in USA: Cynthia on NPR
- Video in Lima: Film series on Peruvians in the USA
- Dance in NY: Ballet Folklorico Peru returns
- Web, worldwide: The “new” soyandina.com
II. STATUS REPORT
I love getting comments like this. Reminds me why it matters, and helps me keep going.
I just recently learned about Soy Andina and I have been inspired and impressed by the wonderful film clips and photography available on this site. No doubt that the final film will be amazing. Thank you for taking the subject of Peruvian transnational immigration and depicting it with such great respect and beauty.
Here in Chicago, and even throughout the Midwest, there are few Peruvians. Even fewer children of Peruvians keeping the traditions. That is the reason why my aunt and I began Peru Profundo. As Peruvian Independence day approaches in July 28, we are also preparing for our celebrations.
Again, thank you. Here in Chicago we look forward to the completion of your film! Know that you have support, encouragement and a connection with us!
- Katherine Bardales, Chicago IL
Where things stand at the end of June...
I returned to New York with new clips and a rough 55-minute cut to get feedback, completion funding, and archival footage (the search for which led to the South Bronx and the legends of hip-hop...
Here's the bottom line. The feedback from filmmakers and distributors was positive. They liked the story, character, the structure.Distributors want to see a more refined cut. That was the goal.
The funding story is tougher. We didn't get money to finish, yet. Our best short-term hope now is a NY State grant (we hear around Aug 1).
In any case, I'll return to Peru July 4 to shoot one or two missing scenes and do presentations for the ex-pat community and a university.
If the NYSCA grant comes through, we'll continue editing. If not, I'll return to New York to do more fundraising, find paid work to pay the bills, and finish when ALL the money's in place.
I'd guess there's 10-12 weeks work left. I'd love to finish by end of year, but have finally learned a lesson - don't predict completion dates until all the money's in the bank. For past 2 years I've been fundraising and shooting concurrently, starting and stopping, starting and stopping. That was the only way to do it - I couldn't control our character's lives. But I won't continue like that.
I began to make a connection between hip hop and folklore in Peru, both expressions of a marginalized culture...
Back in April Cynthia was interviewed for NPR’s Latino USA program. Just heard that he story finally airs this coming week, July 1-7.
I’m excited about this, I think it’s going to be a real delight, and the association of NPR should help us enlist more support.
I tried guinea pig for the first time at a festival - it was crispy, crunchy, awesome - better than KFC!
Here in New York the show will air on WYNC-AM, Friday 10:30pm and Saturday 11:30pm. For your local station go to Latino USA.
Check out the blog and photos from the interview back in April.
Journalist Reese Ehrlich filed other great stories from Peru and Bolivia for NPR as well, you can find them by putting “Reese” or “Peru” in the search bar.
Ballet Folklorico Peru (co-founded by Nelida, and featured in the movie) is looking for new members! You don't have to be Peruvian or have previous formal dance training. Besides performing, the group's mission is to teach and share traditional Peruvian dances. Click on the link for more information.
Meanwhile, back in New York, the group makes a rare Manhattan appearance:
PERUVIAN CULTURAL VILLAGE
A free family event!
Saturday, June 25, 2005, 12-6pm
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Theater of the Riverside Church
91 Claremont Avenue at 120th Street
I paid a visit to a sound studio in New York in case I end up doing the final sound design/mixing here. Several filmmaker friends recommended I visit Splash, down in the Flatiron district. So I did, and they seemed great. Nice people, great roster of docs, and upfront with rates. A definite contender if I return.
I am grateful to know people like Richard Pena, my old colleague and friend from the Film Society and New York Film Festival.
We caught up again with drinks after work. Great talking movies (which is kind of like shooting hoops with Michael Jordon - Richard is the tops in his field)
This should be fun and interesting: a screening of docs dealing with Peruvian transnational migration.
El Instituto de Estudios Peruanos presenta:
PERUANOS EN LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS:
Un serie de videos sobre migración transnacional
(una parte del seminario “Migraciones Transnacionales Peruanas” con la participación de destacados expertos nacionales y extranjeros)
Entradas Libres!
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Martes 28 de Junio, 4-8 pm
Centro Cultural de España (Natalio Sánchez 181–185. Santa Beatriz, Lima 1)
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My friend David Mortara may be English, but he's a leading expert (and player) of Peruvian Coastal Music - and a prolific writer on the subject. Some notes from his recent emails:
The best traditional Peruvian coastal music exists among Peruvian blacks and criollos, and that is where I feel really at home. My musical "family" (who receive me as a member musician) lives and plays in Don Porfirio. I know them all by name, and they know me by my chapa "chicharron de pollo".
To explore the black traditions in Peruvian music (my particular cup of tea) there is probably no better place than the following:
Yesterday I had a 10 minute meeting with The Harkness Foundation, a major supporter of dance projects. Introduced my Alex Dube, the exuberant Executive Director of Career Transitions for Dancers. As instructed by Alex, I wasn't up there to ask for money, but to "ask for guidance and counsel." They don't officially give money to films. But good meeting. I think the film caught their interest, and I did a good job pitching it. I'm getting better at describing the project in 10 seconds. People like the simple tri-fold brochure as well. Simple is good, people are too busy. My past connection with Lincoln Center (where I used to be marketing director for the Film Society) perked up the conversation scored point for sure. What will come out of this? I don't know. I'll be reconnecting with them in a few weeks.
Below, excerpts of emails from Angelli Meza in Sydney Australia. We met online a couple of weeks ago via the expat list and have continued a conversation that's a variation of so many others - people connecting around this project, often via the Internet:
I went to the website from work today. I read a bit more from the site...I had no idea there were so many Peruvians in the USA. For me 270,000 is a LOT of people. Are you thinking of getting your film to Australia? I know we have a very small Latino population, but you never know.
I think I can relate to Nelie in your story so well. I love so much about Peru but I was raised in Australia and it is just so different here. Here in Australia, it is so much better for women in terms of rights and freedoms (apart from the better standard of living). And I think your movie would touch my heart. Also, because it is so remote here in Oz that I even find
it hard to believe there are migrant Peruvians in other parts of the globe (the Peruvian community in Sydney is tiny) who feel like I do - I don't know what to call it by I call myself bicultural and incredibly lucky to be so.
If I can relate to Nelida's story, my sister would relate to it even more. She has returned to Peru more times than I have, one time spent a whole year there with her daughter. She really saw the good and the disappointments, and in Australia she now works as a Coordinator of Cultural Arts - helping different community groups (be they ethnic or whatever) organise their festivals, exhibitions or whatever artistic event. Prior to that, many years ago, she used to help organise probably Sydney' s only Latin American Peña. She may have even heard about your movie as she would know relevant people in the artistic community of Sydney.
It would be nice to meet up in Lima...I think you and Tony have something in common - .peruvian girls (ha ha). Seriously, you have given me a bit of hope that Tony may be able to embrace Peru and its traditions in the same way that you have managed to do it through your association with Nelida. This will be Tony's 1st visit and I admit I am a bit nervous about how he will react and whether or not he will like it.
I love and value Peruvian music. I have never considered it lower class. In fact if I could dance the Marinera Limeña, I would be thrilled (and my mother would probably burst into tears). And jarana to me has always implied a party, a good time. Well those are my roots anyway.
Are you South American in part? I ask because I am intrigued as to why you chose to make such a movie? Do you also have roots in Peru?
Cuidate, Angelli
My niece Jessica came to New York with about 125 other teenage girls from the Ann Carroll School of Dance in Franklin, TN to visit the city and put on a show at Broadway Dance Center. Rarely if ever have I seen such a concentration of blondes in New York. Her mom/my sister Julie started asking me six months ago if I could videotape the show. I could never commit. I had just arrived in Lima and didn't know when i'd be returning to New York. Then a couple of months ago I told her I'd be back after all - but didn't have a camera (the one stolen in Lima). What to do, what to do... last week I called former intern Gabriela, who told me she couldn't find film work - but had just bought this $3,000 video camera she wasn't using, if I ever wanted to borrow it.... So thanks to Gabriela, I taped the performance and thus helping preserve evidence that white suburban American girls can dance too. It was also the first time I'd used a video camera since my beloved Sony TRV-900 was stolen. I miss that camera, and I missed shooting.
The mini-DV with first rough cut arrived from Lima. (Picked up in Barranco by Doris, who carried it by bus to Surco to drop off with American couple I met on expat list who flew to Chicago from where they Fed-Exed it to friend and Project Rebirth director Steve Mendelsohn's building where I picked it up from doorman to take by subway to Upper Manhattan to former editor's place who made copy on DVD. Got that?)
I watched tape twice with documentary friends for feedback. First time with Ingrid Patetta from Dashboard Productions and Kathy Leichter from Mint Leaf Productions.
Good thing I watched it with a group, because they saw it very differently from me. I couldn't stop my inner critic from blabbing ("oh man, we missed that shot...why didn't I use lights here...how could we have forgotten to...."). By end of 55 minute tape I was slumped way down in couch, ready to fend off barrage of biting commentary.
Actually they liked it! At first I thought they were saying that to make me feel good. But I think they meant it. Sure, at this stage - very rough, incomplete - there's all kinds of flaws, omissions. Scene by scene there's lots of work.
But here's the thing. We want to know whether we are on right path. And the consensus was yes. They saw a real story. They liked the characters. The structure - the basic way we intend to organize the scenes and tell the story - seems to work. The material is beautifully shot.
Problems: Too much voiceover. Pacing is off. The story doesn't always build. Turning points missing. Need to see the characters engaging with other people more, at times it's like they're disembodied from their settings. All seems fixable and what you'd expect at this stage.
I felt hugely relieved. Especially when it came to the structure, how we envisioned weaving Nelida and Cynthia's stories together. On paper it sounded good. But would it work? Funny thing is, I couldn't tell, because this first edition had most of Nelida's story missing. But everyone else saw enough to think it would.
I'm trusting my instincts and approach way more these days - I think the process of having to write out the story for the editor and for fundraising proposals really helped. On other hand, it's amazing how I can't view the material on screen objectively. I see what's flawed or missing, my mind fixated on what "could have been." Everyone else just sees what they see - and for the first time. Completely different experience.
Next day I worked with the brilliant Documentary Doctor Fernanda Rossi. All day session. We watched the tape and then scene by scene discussed what worked, what didn't, and how to fix it.
Nobody thinks we need more material - although there is the matter of a closing scene for Cynthia. After her journey to the provinces in search of the "soul" or source of folkloric dance, she returns to Lima with a transformed attitude. Need to show that. Got to call her, find out what she's up to or plotting.
On other hand, when I mentioned that Cynthia was returning to USA - probably in October - everyone agreed, THAT is be the real closing scene. Hmm.
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PERUVIAN DANCE CLASS
Ballet Folklorico Peru (Paterson
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BOOKS
Faces of Celebration: Photographs of Peru
The Guinea Pig: Healing, Food, and Ritual in the Andes
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DOC FILMS
South American Explorers - Peru
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NEWS (in English)
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