Bio:
Maria Nunes is a photographer in Trinidad and Tobago with special interests in capturing imagery related to the performing arts and in documenting cultural heritage, especially traditional Carnival portrayals.
Quotes, Notes & Etc.
CARNIVAL PERFORMANCE ART: Special focus on the Blue Devil tradition in Paramin, Trinidad, as well as extensive work documenting the contemporary portrayals of carnival traditions such as Fancy Sailor, Moko Jumbie, Midnight Robber, Jab Jab and Dame Lorraine.
CULTURAL HERITAGE: Exhibition of images to commemorate Emancipation Day in 2012, official photographer for the Trinidad and Tobago delegation to Carifesta in Suriname in 2012,
MUSIC: a commission by the National Parang Association of Trinidad and Tobago in 2010, photo documentation of SteelFestt in 2012 and photography of the National Steel Symphony Orchestra's participation in the 9th China International Folk Arts Festival in Yichang and Beijing in 2013. In addition, Maria specializes in concert photography and works closely with many leading Trinidad and Tobago jazz artists such as Etienne Charles and Vaughnette Bigford and leading steelbands such as Trinidad All Stars.
DANCE: Photographer-in-residence for New Waves! Institute from 2011-2014 in Trinidad and Haiti, Official photographer for the Noble Douglas Dance Company and Lilliput Children's Theatre in 2013-14.
FILM: Filmed and edited "Rainforest: A Musical Postcard from Trinidad" which was screened at the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival in 2011 and was field producer for Mystic Fighters, a film by Sophie Meyer.
MUSIC-THEATRE: Maria is a founding Director of Calabash Foundation for the Arts and is the producer of Jab Molassie, an original music-theatre work written by Caitlyn Kamminga and Dominique Le Gendre.
Maria's interest in the arts has been significantly influenced by her love of music which includes a special interest in collecting early calypso, string band and big band recordings of Trinidad and Tobago, as well as traditional folk and stickfighting songs.
Apart her arts based portfolio, Maria also has developed a significant body of work in sports action photography for the First Citizens Sports Foundation.
How old is your country? Who old is your culture? So few people think of the 7000-year history of their culture. In this talk, Maria artfully reminds us that...
Matrix team-member Darius Mans, Economist (PhD, MIT), president of Africare (largest aid organization in Africa), presents Africare award to Lula (2012). From 2000 to 2004 Darius served as the World Bank’s Country Director for Mozambique and Angola, leading a team which generated $150 million in annual lending, including support for public private partnerships in infrastructure which catalyzed over $1 billion in private investment. Darius lives between Washington D.C. and Salvador, Bahia.
IV. LET THERE BE PATHWAYS!
"I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
— Susan Rogers, Personal recording engineer for Prince at Paisley Park Recording Studio; Director, Music Perception & Cognition Laboratory, Berklee College of Music
"Many thanks for this - I am touched!" — Julian Lloyd Webber
"I'm truly thankful... Sohlangana ngokuzayo :)" — Nduduzo Makhathini, Blue Note Records
"Thanks, this is a brilliant idea!!" — Alicia Svigals, Klezmer violin, Founder of The Klezmatics
"This is super impressive work ! Congratulations ! Thanks for including me :)))" — Clarice Assad
"Thank you" — Banch Abegaze, manager, Kamasi Washington
The Matrix uncoils from the Recôncavo of Bahia, final port-of-call for more enslaved human beings than any other such throughout all of human history and from where some of the most physically and spiritually uplifting music ever made evolved...
...all essentially cut off from the world at large. But after 40,000 years of artistic creation by mankind, it's finally now possible to create bridges closely interconnecting all artists everywhere (having begun with the Saturno brothers above).
By the same mathematics positioning some 8 billion human beings within some 6 or so steps of each other, people in the Matrix tend to within close, accessible steps of everybody else inside the Matrix.
Brazil is not a European nation. It's not a North American nation. It's not an East Asian nation. It straddles — jungle and desert and dense urban centers — both the equator and the Tropic of Capricorn.
Brazil absorbed over ten times the number of enslaved Africans taken to the United States of America, and is a repository of African deities (and their music) now largely forgotten in their lands of origin.
Brazil was a refuge (of sorts) for Sephardim fleeing an Inquisition which followed them across the Atlantic (that unofficial symbol of Brazil's national music — the pandeiro — the hand drum in the opening scene above — was almost certainly brought to Brazil by these people).
Across the parched savannas of the interior of Brazil's culturally fecund nordeste/northeast, where wizard Hermeto Pascoal was born in Lagoa da Canoa (Lagoon of the Canoe) and raised in Olho d'Águia (Eye of the Eagle), much of Brazil's aboriginal population was absorbed into a caboclo/quilombola culture punctuated by the Star of David.
