Chamamé is already a World Heritage Site

The chamame is Corrientes and he is also much more than Corrientes. To date, it is officially the intangible cultural heritage of humanity recognized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

The resolution voted on Wednesday in Paris opens the doors to chamame to continue traveling and conquering new audiences in different parts of the world. This is an important distinction in terms of symbolism and also material: we know that cultural expressions which reach this level of recognition can also obtain facilities in terms of international funds for international cooperation.

“Intangible heritage gives communities a sense of identity and continuity: it fosters creativity and social well-being, contributes to the management of the natural and social environment and generates economic income“, say it UNESCO by explaining your own category. And you can say all that about him chamame, a very popular musical genre in what is called the Guaranitic region, the region that goes from Mato Grosso do Sul in Brazil to Paraguay and part of Uruguay. That is to say in the area where the Jesuit missions that shaped it in dialogue with the Guarani, Spanish, African and Jewish cultures.

“It highlights the flora, the fauna, the love of the land,” UNESCO said in its recitals.

“It’s a mix, a mboyeré, as we say here ”, declares the director of culture of the province of Corrientes, Gabriel Romero, adding that in recent decades the chamame it also spread to a large part of the province of Buenos Aires and even to Patagonia.

“It has to do with how the people of our region have spread across the country. Looking for better horizons, looking for better jobs. This makes the chamame comes as a provision for the soul, what we call the garment of the soul», Says Julio Cáceres, co-founder with Joaquín Sheridan of Those of Imaguaré, an emblematic group that has been performing on stage since 1977. In dialogue with Bugle, the singer goes further and says that the chamame “It’s like a religion.”

This religion this accessory for the soul which is part of the life of coastal populations, coexists without conflict with the representations of popular religiosity of the area like the Virgin of Itati and the Gauchito Gil. And, to stay alive, this credo has not only spread geographically but also renews its aesthetic and ideological repertoire. From the canon of the 30s and 40s to the lyricism and political and social commitment of the seventies Lately there has been a scene that combines dance components with lyrics that speak out against gender violence and climate change.

“Some are more religious, others are just believers, but we are all devotees in one way or another. he chamame It’s something that goes far beyond music and dance and has to do with our landscape, our gastronomy, our stories, our professions, ”says Romero to continue with this idea of ​​the transcendent.

Romero talks about the saints, the central figures in the history of the chamame. Focusing on women, he mentions Teresa Parodi, the sisters Vera, María Helena, Ramona galarza and Ofelia Leiva and remarks that “there were women who were very powerful when the artistic presence of women in the media was not yet discussed”.

For Araceli Aponte, owner of Dorado FM, a radio station entirely dedicated to chamame, progress has been made but there is still a long way to go. He says, for example, that of all his radio recordings, only 5% are songs performed by women. ” Chamamé Festival In January of this year, we managed to reach the quota of 30% of women on stage, ”she says. Bugle and talk about Chamame Kuñá, a collective of 120 women who seek to achieve a more balanced representation above and below the stages.

Susy de Pompert, a singer-songwriter from Corrientes with more than three decades of experience, says that in the last few years she has changed her way of thinking about the genre and started to think chamame as “a trench for social engagement, a place of activism for women’s rights and a place of awareness through music against all kinds of violence”. In pursuit of this goal, Susy worked on creating a repertoire chamamecero philo-feminist: “I wrote songs against patriarchal love because we are all crossed by patriarchy and I think it is important to contribute to a different vision of the chamame and women ”.

Like the tango, national, popular and universal

Long regarded as the younger brother of Argentinian folklore, he chamame he occupied more and more important places. Behind the mboyeré which began to take shape during the Jesuit missions, the chamamé as we know it was born at the beginning of the 20th century.

Experts talk about the four heroes of chamamé with reference to Emilio Chamorro, Mauricio Valenzuela, Ernesto Montiel and Mario del Tránsito Cocomarola, who are the ones who laid the foundations for the genre in the 1930s and 1940s.

It was from the 1970s, with the incorporation of a group of young musicians, that the chamame has grown and in addition to being renewed, it has been able to reach other provinces and earn more state culturel. Some of these young intellectuals who brought him new layers today are chamameceras legends: Mario Bofill, Teresa Parodi, Antonio Tarragó Ros (h), Marilí Morales Segovia and Pocho Roch. They were followed in the 90s as references Nini Flores, Raul barboza and the Chango Spasiuk, which gave him an international spirit that makes these sounds spin.

The popular and plebeian origin and the fusion of the local clearly bring it closer to the tango, already declared Intangible heritage of humanity by UNESCO a few years ago.

In fact, the chamamé had already appeared before UNESCO. In 2018, there was an official presentation for it to be part of the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. But the Assembly opposed the proposal. The Evaluation Committee, a body predating the Assembly, considered that some technical questions were missing. There was no national catalog of intangible cultural goods in which chamame has been registered. And without this at the national level, it was not possible to move to the “universal” body. The catalog has been made and the chamame he returned to the charge.

Eduardo Sívori, Head of the Performing Arts, Music and Audiovisual Arts Department of the Cultural Institute of Correntino and, since 2003, Director of the Chamamé National Day, proposes a list of coincidences between tango and chamame: “First, intertwined dance: these are the only two Argentinian folk expressions that have them. Second, they share the bellows; the bandoneon is very powerful in the chamame. Third, the two they were very discriminated, considered as products of the bottom line or of rurality ”.

To the list it can be added that both speak on the love of the earth, the uprooting that we feel far from the soil that has seen it grow and, of course, sorrow.

During this session, couscous, that Arab cuisine that crossed borders, and the Equestrian Festival of Wine Horses, Spain, among others, were also declared a World Heritage Site.

Cultists of chamame they see it as a meta-genre, as a musical universe that can contain an infinite variety of subjects and sensibilities. “It’s identity music which represents many people and which also has an interesting message because it is about love of the earth, love of women, men, friendship, humans. This seems very important to us in a time of crisis like this, where the country and the world need a positive message, ”says Romero.

Sing to remember, sing to think, and chain ideas. Julio Cáceres combines concepts about music with quotes from songs he knows by heart. He quotes, for example, the one who says: “Today everywhere, every Argentinian a chamame can sing“. Perhaps, in a few years, the geographical spectrum of the verse could be broadened and it would be necessary to say that: “Everywhere today, every human, a chamame can sing”.

PK