For Montgomery Fellow Marlui Nobrega Miranda, a passionate devotion to the study of musical traditions has meant something more than a career of detached academia. The renowned singer, composer and researcher instead chose to take her calling deep into the Brazilian Amazon villages where endangered art forms thrive.
Speaking yesterday before a large crowd of students and faculty, Miranda, who has studied the music and culture of the region's people for two decades, opened her presentation by playing traditional music of the Tuyuka tribe, with whom she has recently lived and worked.
The Tuyuka are indigenous people who live in the Amazon along the Tiqui River in Brazil. Since first experiencing their music, Miranda has been working with them to make recordings and preserve their heritage.
Miranda has also incorporated the songs and ceremonies of the Tupi tribe into a Catholic mass in Sao Paolo, Brazil.
"It was like a puzzle to find the right verses to fit into the Catholic ritual," Miranda, who also made a video with the Tupi tribe, explained.
The video served to demonstrate the changing relationship between indigenous tribes and the Catholic Church. The venture was in fact sponsored in large part by Catholic organizations that raised funds for the Tupi to come to Sao Paolo, Miranda said.
Catholic missionaries still living among many tribes are now more concerned about preserving indigenous traditions and helping people to keep their land, she added.
Aside from her past work with Amazon Indian tribes, Miranda focused the discussion on her upcoming projects at Dartmouth.
Breaking from the pattern of shorter stay, Miranda will remain in residence at the Montgomery House until mid-June. Over the Spring term, Miranda will be teaching the Latin American, Latino and Caribbean Studies 70 course, the People and Cultures of the Brazilian Amazon, with Professor Rodolfo Franconi.
LALACS 70 will focus on the music of the Tuyuka tribe with the final goal of recording the Tuyuka's music and ceremonies onto a compact disk.
The project will "help preserve an endangered culture," Miranda said, as she stressed the need to record their tribal traditions for future generations.
As part of the project, representatives of the Tuyuka tribe will be at Dartmouth from April 29 to May 16 for a variety of events that Miranda has planned both for the Dartmouth community and LACS 70 students.
Miranda encouraged audience members to become involved with the project as a means of valorizing the cultural and musical aspects of society, as well as helping to preserve the Amazon and the interaction with the Amazonian people.
Miranda concluded her lecture in the same manner that she began it, with a traditional Tuyuka chant that means goodbye.
