Nortec Collective Featuring Bostich + Fussible

Friday, September 25, 2009 at 8 pm
Hogg Memorial Auditorium
Additional residency and education activities to be announced

“The idea of mixing traditional sounds with electronic beats is not new and, these days, is nearly mainstream. Still, apart from Nortec, none of the experiments has mustered the force to transform themselves into an authentic cultural movement, where musicians, designers, video-makers, artists, and even architects share the same vision and shape one of today’s more progressive artistic movements.” —Jose Manuel Valenzuela in Paso del Nortec: This is Tijuana!

“Such a crossbreed aesthetic has allowed these musicians and artists to express the complex fluidity between the `American’ and the `Mexican,’ the `First’ and the `Third’ Worlds, the modern and the old, the cosmopolitan and the local, the center and the periphery, and the hip and the kitschy, as they experience it in their everyday lives in the Tijuana-San Diego border”—Alejandro Madrid in Nortec Rifa!

Nortec is an inter-disciplinary art and design movement, drawing its name from the combination of “norteño” (referring to various musical styles of the northern region of Mexico) and “techno.” Nortec music represents the collision of electronica and traditional Mexican music, including norteña and banda sinaloense or tambora. Nortec Collective refers to a group of musicians whose work has been praised by critics, fans, and scholars.

Nortec Collective Featuring Bostich + Fussible brings Ramon Amezcua (Bostich) and Pepe Mogt (Fussible), two of the founders of the nortec movement, to the stage for an unforgettable audio-visual experience. Over the years, The Collective has appeared in a variety of formats, often appearing alone or together with other DJs. For their appearance in Austin, Bostich and Fussible will be joined onstage by a group of live musicians and a dazzling video presentation, adding yet another layer to the Nortec experience. Their latest album, “Tijuana Sound Machine” was nominated for a Grammy in the “Best Latin Rock/Alternative Album” category…dancing will be unavoidable!

Video & audio samples
Interview from NPR’s Studio 360
Interview with Fussible & Bostich
PRI’s the World `Global Hit’
Nacional Records Site
Music Video: Tijuana Sound Machine
Music Video: The Clap

Articles & Reviews
Review by World Music Today
Interview with Fussible
Article by Time Magazine

Grupo de Rua
Artistic Director: Bruno Beltrão
Program: H3

Tuesday, February 9, 2010 at 8 pm
Hogg Memorial Auditorium
Additional residency and education activities to be announced

“Raw 21st-century expression…extraordinarily brilliant.“—The Guardian (UK)

“This is the real shape of Brazilian dance, and not a samba in sight.”— The Independent (UK)

Bruno Beltrão is a talented, young choreographer from Rio de Janeiro and the Artistic Director of an explosive all-male dance company, Grupo de Rua or “Street Group.” Rapidly becoming an international sensation, Beltrão’s work shatters preconceived ideas about street dance, stripping away the clichés of the genre and creating a new, previously unknown space between hip-hop and contemporary dance. He uses a wide variety of music, from Rimsky Korsakov to free jazz or even complete silence, and “instead of just taking the dance off the street and to the stage, his works respect the rules of the theater.”

Beltrão’s latest piece “H3” has been described as a “hip hop expedition into the unknown: sensual, forceful, fragile.” Nine dancers create astonishing duets as they collide and balance against each other, using elements of krumping, popping, and floor-spins. As one presenter described it, “the work dispenses with heavy beats and macho posturing often associated with hip hop, instead creating a minimalist, almost meditative interpretation of hip-hop in which the movement itself becomes its own pulsating rhythm.”

Additional Resources
Review in Ballet Magazine UK
Video excerpts from `H3’
Additional video excerpts from `H3’
Video excerpts from `H2’

Canción del Cuerpo
featuring El Colegio del Cuerpo and The University of Texas Dance Repertory Theater

March 5-6 2010 at 8:00 pm
March 7, 2010 at 2:00 pm
B. Iden Payne Theatre
Additional residency and education activities to be announced

El Colegio del Cuerpo or “The College of the Body,” is Colombia´s first contemporary dance choreographic formation center, a dance school for disadvantaged children, and a professional dance company. Based in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, eCdC was co-founded by Álvaro Restrepo and Marie France Delieuvin in 1997. With more than ten years in practice eCdC has developed a philosophy and methodology that uses contemporary dance grammar and techniques, among other pedagogical tools, to convey artistic, social and human values to young people in a country devastated by multiple forms of violence, social and political degradation. El Colegio’s approach centers around two principal lines of action: Education FOR Dance and Education WITH Dance. The first is related to talent detection and professional training and development as interpreters/performers, choreographers/creators, and pedagogues/multipliers. The second has to do with non-professional artist education: integral body conscience, including sexual education, drug abuse prevention, intra-family and other issues of violence, environmental education, nutrition and health care, among others.

“Canción del Cuerpo” is the culmination of more than two years of collaboration between the University of Texas and eCdC. Initiated by the Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice at the University of Texas, this ongoing project has seen students and faculty from across the University of Texas community interact with members of eCdC, both in Austin and Cartagena, on topics ranging from dance and corporal education to human rights advocacy and law to photo-journalism and anthropology.

This special program will present new works by several featured choreographers, performed by dance majors in the University’s Dance Repertory Theatre together with company members of El Colegio del Cuerpo, under the Artistic Direction and The University of Texas Faculty Members Lyn C. Wiltshire and Yacov Sharir and guest choreographer Álvaro Restrepo.

Additional Resources
Documentary on eCdC’s Proyecto MA
Video documentary on El Colegio del Cuerpo from Canada’s CBC television
Article on El Colegio del Cuerpo written by Álvaro Restrepo
Segment on NPR’s All Things Considered on eCdC
Article on El Colegio del Cuerpo by UNESCO
Video excerpts of `Fragmentos’

Gilberto Gil

March 23 and 25, 2010 at 8 pm
Hogg Memorial Auditorium

“There may have been one man onstage, but there was enough warmth, love, intelligence, and sheer talent on display to power an orchestra.”—-Variety

“He played delicate bossa novas, strummed rockers and intricate sambas; he crooned, whispered and whooped, equally at home in the fast patter of a samba or the curvaceous contours of a ballad…. He was alone onstage but surrounded by ideas and interactions: with lovers, with God, with Brazil and the world. And with the audience, too, which was regularly invited to that most amiable social exchange, a sing-along.”—-New York Times

Gilberto Gil is one of the world’s great songwriters and one of Brazil’s most beloved artists. A key figure in both the Música Popular Brasileira or `MPB’ and Tropicalismo movements of the 1960s together with longtime collaborator Caetano Veloso, Gil is a unique musical ambassador powered by firm cultural conviction. Throughout his career, he has affirmed himself as one of the most creative and influential personas in Brazilian music. Rhythms from the northeast of Brazil like the baião, apart from samba and bossa-nova were fundamental in his formation. Using them as a starting point, Gil forged his own music to which he incorporated rock, reggae, funk and rhythms from Bahia such as afoxé.

Always in tune with whatever new is happening in the world of music, his records have been released in many different countries, and nearly even year, he takes his music on the road throughout Europe, North America, Latin America, and Japan, performing what his website calls “a music with a strong rhythmic appeal and melodic richness, as mixed as its people.” Gil has tackled a wide variety of issues in his lyrics, pertinent to modern reality: from social inequality to the racial question, from African to Oriental culture, from science to religion, among others. Embodying the role of artist as agent of change, he served as Brazil’s Minister of Culture in the administration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva from 2003 until 2008 and became widely known for this stance on intellectual property rights among other issues.

For this Austin appearance, Gil will perform an intimate solo acoustic set.

Additional Resources
Wikipedia Entry on Gilberto Gil
Segment 1: Interview from `Democracy Now!’
Segment 2: Interview from `Democracy Now!’
Segment 3: Interview from `Democracy Now!’
Gilberto Gil’s Youtube Channel
Video performance of `Refazenda’ on MTV Unplugged
New York Times article on Gilberto Gil and intellectual property
New York Times Concert Review #1
New York Times Concert Review #2

André Mehmari Trio
(Opening for Esperanza Spalding)

April 23, 2010 at 8 pm
Hogg Memorial Auditorium
Additional residency and education activities to be announced

“Mehmari is one of Brazils best-kept secrets. While most Brazilian musicians paint in bold primary colours of hot rhythms, Mehmari holds you in a spell with otherworldly, cool pastels, azure sonic washes and poetry. A classically-trained wunderkind barely into his twenties, Mehmari is a cross between Metheny, Shorter and Gismonti, playing reeds, strings, percussion and other instruments with an astonishing fluency.”—-John Stevenson, www.ejazznews.com

“I’ve always been told about the so-called ‘borderline’ between classical and popular. In my imagination, it looks like the Mexico-US border, full of inspectors and dogs. I can’t remember having to cross such a frontier. Music is my country. I believe in the existence of styles, but not two big, incommunicable universes. I like to establish unusual bridges between apparently incongruent styles.”—-André Mehmari in an interview with Bravo! Magazine

André Mehmari is considered one of Brazil’s most talented young musicians. As a pianist, composer, and arranger he has shown himself to be a gifted artist, whether composing for jazz trios, symphony orchestras, chamber ensembles, or ballet companies. He has even recorded an album of beautiful, original arrangements of classic Beatles songs!

Winner of the 1998 Prêmio VISA de MPB competition (Brazil’s most important award for Popular Music), Mehmari often draws comparisons to Keith Jarrett, Brad Mehldau, and Egberto Gismonti. However, as Arthur Nestrovski, musician and noted music critic for the “Folha de São Paulo”, put it: “Nobody plays like him in Brazil and only a few outside Brazil.” His compositions have been performed by leading Brazilian orchestras (OSESP) and chamber ensembles (São Paulo String Quartet), and his career in jazz and Brazilian popular music has attained wide attention amongst Brazilians. He has an active performing schedule with his trio, as a solo pianist, and as a duo with singers Mônica Salmaso and Ná Ozzetti. He made his U.S. debut at the 2005 edition of Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, South Carolina. He has toured Japan with Joyce and Dori Caymmi. and recently released the album “Contínua Amizade” (“Continuous Friendship”) with mandolin-virtuoso Hamilton de Holanda. In 2008 he released a new album entirely dedicated to his own compositions entitled “…de árvores e valsas” (‘About waltzes and trees’) and later toured the northeast of Brazil with Ivan Lins, playing both Ivan’s and his own compositions. 2009 has already seen the release of André’s latest album, “Miramari” with Italian jazz clarinetist Gabriele Mirabassi

Bruce Gilman of Brazzil Magazine speaks for host of critics in his assessment: “Andre Mehmari has the rare distinction of being one of the most consistently inventive and absorbing, yet unacknowledged musicians in the forefront of Brazilian instrumental art. Convincingly at ease in nearly any context, from Mozart to Monk, Mehmari possesses an impressive classical technique that is never just paraded; there is conviction in all he plays. His formidable improvisatory imagination and uninhibited lyricism have made his presence on any recording a strong assertion of its high quality.”

Audio/Video
André Mehmari on Myspace
Downloadable MP3s from a variety of his albums
Downloadable PDFs of scores of his original compositions here
Video performance of `Um Anjo Nasce’ with his Trio
Video performance with Hamilton de Holanda and interviews in Portuguese
Brief interview in Portuguese
Video performance with Na Ozzetti
Video performance of `Lachrimae’ by André Mehmari Trio

Interviews and Reviews
Interview on Brazzil.com
Review of CD with Hamilton