Tiago Pereira has created a project with no end in sight that celebrates the pleasant variety of Portuguese music, entitled "Portuguese music liking itself" and now he embarks on a new visual memory of the country through the "cycle of wool in real time" and soon intends to produce a video collection on the Campaniça guitar.
How you came up with the idea of "Portuguese music liking itself?
Tiago Pereira: I was born into a family of musicians and was always so close to the traditional music because my father played the ukulele as a child, saw the instruments builders and I always deal with this reality. Before start making videos and films, I recorded sounds, had a "mini disc" and walked down the street to capture sounds and conversations. In 1998 I recorded a gentleman who imitated the sound of accordion and it woke me the idea of recording musicians, and then started filming street musicians too, did many ethnographic collections also recorded people singing in the countryside. In 2008 I made a film with B Facade singing in Tras-os-Montes, in the roof, and at the foot of the bells and in 2011 while watching the movies in "blogotec" I began to realize everything I already had done that was very good without giving it a name, also I had a file and found that I liked to do something that had to do with the state of our culture. As I had done a documentary on "the significance of Portuguese music liking itself" I decided to create a video channel where I could film people on the street as if they were on a stage and showed all kinds of music that exists in Portugal, more Portuguese.
Hence the name? You think we do not value the Portuguese music?
TP: It is not a matter of not valuing, a intellectual had an equation stating that the Portuguese music did not have any self-esteem and that there was a gap in our study that had been lost, i.e. there was a time of collecting but that had not been studied, had never been deepened or become publicized in a given time. We've always been very permeable to influences from other musical cultures ever since. The big question of "Portuguese music liking itself" is to debate why we are culturally closer to a black man who sings in the U.S. in the middle of nowhere, rather than a man who sings while digging potatoes in Maçainhas? We have always been closer to a musical Anglo-Saxon culture opposite to a Portuguese popular music, in a country as small as ours, is not understandable. The Portuguese music does not know itself, it is not known what is done at other sites and for such cannot like itself, in this sense was born the concept and terminology. I do not mean by this that I considered that Portugal has less self-esteem in relation to popular culture, for more years after April 25th, the prejudice against fascism somehow have not be forgotten by the people, is a kind of subconscious collective, that applies the idea that the country is poor and as such is there is a poverty of spirit connected to these issues, such as handicrafts, manufacturing, and this extends to music. Increasingly we live in a world where this is not synonymous with poverty, but wealth of culture and real economy that can develop from there. Therefore, we witnessed the emergence of contemporary craft, because people are turning to these sources, but the older ones of a certain social statement, think this is poverty. We live in a country where the blankets made in Minde in many of the looms that existed in the village, everyone back in the day had a loom at home, currently there is only one, has suddenly an order from Germany who want 300 a month, but there are no looms and people to do them. It's nonsense, prejudice and popular music follows the same route, it could have gone out, but we only hear about fado of Amalia and there is nothing more beyond that.
It is an open project? Will you continue to tape these musicians or are you going to stop at some point?
TP: Yes, the project does not intend to stop. In Portugal we must be resilient and so we resist.
In parallel, you have another project that is "the cycle of wool in real time."
TP: Yes, I have it with Rosa Pomar and basically have documented cycles wool in Portugal and we traveled to various places to see people reeling, in Madera we film a lady doing some caps, in the Azores recorded another woman spinning with a supported distaff and went to see in Fernão Joanes how they make the ornaments for sheep for the feast of May where animals are blessed by a priest.
You make all this whole collection as a kind of visual memory of your country?
TP: Yes, I do these both in terms of music, on the wool cycle and sometimes in other things, when we found people who make handicrafts with wood. In the cycle of wool also interviewed blacksmiths that repair work tools. The idea is to put online the visual memory of the country. The "Portuguese music liking itself" is a collective memory of our sound and then in other projects I also promote the Portuguese culture.
So why the Campaniça guitar?
TP: I have not done it yet; I opened a campaign for funds to make a documentary about the Campaniça guitar and will participate in a concert at the Music Box to raise money for this movie, because it is away from the economic goal. What interests me is that this subject is that is alive, and there are many young people playing it and therefore must be documented. I want to learn why young people continue to play what the elders know about it and talk to instrument builders. At the same time also just finish a documentary about the "chamarritas" in the Azores and this movie will pass the Lisbon Doc is always a victory to view these films makes them visible and bring them to other audiences.
What other projects you have in progress?
TP: I always have other projects, "the Portuguese music liking itself" stemmed from the universal to the particular and now we do otherwise go increasingly to the private, for example, I was in Montemor recording all musicians who I met in all possible genres, from jazz, to experimental, the philharmonic, the fanfares of the firefighters and pop groups, then we did a show that mixed all the videos of these groups and we can do this in other areas of the country.
It's kind of tour?
TP: No, I go to a site and record everything that exists. For example, go to the Camacha and record everything that is in terms of music in this town, or go to the Faial, in the Azores and do the same.
When you started "the Portuguese music liking itself" what was the feedback from the people? I speak not only at a national level, what did they said? Were they amazed?
TP: I still have a big media boom from the beginning. For a long time we had 2000 visits daily, not now because we don't download a video per day, but when we do it will go back up. The movies have gone in Santiago de Compostela, in Germany and are seen all over the world. Especially in Brazil were I always well accepted in specialized blogs, they were amazed how such a small country has such a great diversity and so antagonistic. We fought hard for it.
http://amusicaportuguesaagostardelapropria.org/
http://vimeo.com/38127651
http://massivemov.com/projectDetail.php?idProjecto=272
