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BACHATA Musica del Pueblo
Bachata Musica del Pueblo is a one-hour documentary video exploring
a provocative and discriminated music from the Dominican Republic. Performances were filmed often in remote locations in
the late night / early morning hours, in bars and clubs of New York City and Santo Domingo. The “cinema-verite”
style defies contemporary recipes for filmmaking and underscores the social stigma attached to the Bachata music genre. Using
only available light and a small, unobtrusive digital camera, allowed for innovative shooting and editorial techniques.
Bachata is commonly viewed as “vulgar”, “low class”, a “poor people’s music”.
It is not featured on prime time radio nor promoted as the music of the Dominican Republic, a title which is instead assigned
to Merengue. Bachata, within the Latin music industry has always been (and still is) reputed a musical genre for an oppressed
and marginal audience of laborers and “lower class” people, denied by most Dominicans its role that indeed plays
a very important part in their culture and musical traditions. While researching Bachata I soon discovered the hardships
in finding information as there is to date only one publication about this music,“BACHATA”, by professor Deborah
Pacini Hernandez, a very knowledgeable text that examines in detail the many different attributes and implications of Bachata
within the Dominican society. Yet it was a music I could hear exploding from every corner shop, bar, restaurant, and moving
vehicle in my upper Manhattan neighborhood. As a musician and an educator, I felt an imperative need to fill a cultural void
that I discovered in the music world. I had an enormous dose of passion for the music, the lyrics, the people, and, learning
Spanish as I wandered through the record shops, I dropped dollars into jukeboxes and became more and more engrossed by the
singers and the sounds of their disheartened words. Making this documentary was a labor of love.
Looking for financing
put me in front of two schools of thought: the people who know about Bachata existence and were not interested in divulging
its history, and those who did not know the music and could not envision its social and musical relevance. As a freelance
Field Engineer for Network companies (CBS, ABC, etc) and an Independent Film Maker, I embarked on this project solely with
the support from professional friends and colleagues, as well with the inspiration and collaboration of Prof. Deborah Pacini
Hernandez. Magnetic Art Productions, assumed the costs entirely, and to date, with the editing and subtitling accomplished,
the project is finally ready for general release. This video is intended to be shown in all the urban and rural locations
where Bachata was born and is being performed, both in New York and in Santo Domingo, as well as distributed to various Universities
and other Academic institutions. Bachata Musica del Pueblo will also tour several international film festivals, beginning
in the Fall of 2002.
This documentary is dedicated to the many great artists I had the pleasure and honor to meet,
men and women singing a poetry that speaks to the human heart, that loves and looses in a brutally subjective world.
MAGNETIC ART PRODUCTIONS
P. O. BOX N
NEW YORK, NY 10034
magneticart@juno.com
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COMMENTS FROM SCHOLARS
I watched your video and really enjoyed
it! Very well made and fun to watch also. Congratulations! The film surveys the history and issues surrounding bachata in
a thorough, intelligent, and engaging way. It also gives viewers the opportunity to see and hear the music - makers themselves
performing as well as talking about their expression. It is thus both an important contribution to Caribbean music research
and a joy to watch.
Paul Austerlitz
Brown University
I enjoyed immensely watching
the film--
it was like retracing the steps I took 15 years ago, and being able to see all the old faces and characters,
but older now--and happily, they all seem to be doing well. You have some great footage!
Deborah Pacini-Hernandez
Tufts University
Very good work. Thanks for your sacrifice in documenting this dimension of Dominican culture.
Martha Ellen Davis
University of Florida
Giovanni Savino's "Bachata" is
an informative, engaging, and professionally made film, that explores with great insight and flair this unique musical genre
that has taken the Latin music world by storm in the last decade.
Peter Manuel
City University
of New York
Author of Caribbean Music from Rumba to Reggae
(...) Excellent film. You capture very beautifully
this bluesy afro-Caribbean world of song comment and lament. (...) I am enormously enthusiastic about your work...
Robert Farris Thompson
Professor of the History of Art
Timothy Dwight College
Yale University
I do believe the film captures the wistfulness and underlying poignancy of the bachata form as it traces the rise
of the musical form from its humble and marginalized origins in the rural Dominican Republic to its current international
prominence. I think with increased academic interest today on the important role played by groups who were traditionally
marginalized and forgotten, your documentary provides an important corrective. It is my sincere hope that Latin American and
Caribbean Studies area programs in the greater New York area and beyond are provided access to your important documentary.
J.Michael Turner
Director
Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program
Hunter College-CUNY
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