Every 15th of September from 2016 onwards, folklore culture day is celebrated, in honour of Margot Loyola on her birthday. Talking about folklore culture and referring to Margot Loyola are inseparable.
The culture generated by peoples in a collective way, satisfying life needs, is the human production that allows us to verify the creation that unites the members of a community, distinguishes them and represents them in the infinite manifestations of identity. Human groups spontaneously inherit and transform their cultural components without impositions in a permanent dynamic that allows them to incorporate, transform, abandon and discard components when they do not have or stop having meaning in community life. Thus, it is not possible to reduce folkloric culture to something static, homogeneous and standardized.
Tradition and transformation seem to be opposite terms, however, it is possible to see that a traditional and/or folkloric practice presents variations according to who performs it and in which territories it is manifested. In the same way, as that same practice inherited from generation to generation inevitably mutates over time. There is a creative and transformative power inherent to human beings that is in accordance with their practical, expressive, aesthetic, cosmogonic, religious and many other needs that are part of community life.
To delve into folklore culture, in short, is to delve into the human being, to understand his way of life, his way of being in the world, to understand his transcendence. It would be a mistake to simplify it to certain expressions disseminated by the mass media in the month of September, during the so-called national holidays. In the same way, it is presented in educational establishments associated with certain “traditional dances”. Traditional dance is an aesthetic manifestation, loaded with signs and symbols, of a wonderful complexity that allows us to recognize an individual and collective expression of variable cultural identity.
Margot Loyola’s legacy is multidimensional, encompassing investigative, interpretive, creative and academic fields. It is impossible to limit her to just one. Her fruitful journey along the roads of all Chile, approaching the inhabitants of towns and cities with respect and admiration, allowed her a deep understanding of popular sentiment. She cared about knowing the sorrows and joys, dreams and needs of these men and women who carry tradition. Along with the above, came the spontaneous transmission of musical, choreographic, literary and other expressions.
In Margot Loyola there was a field research methodology that, without knowing it, was emic (“emic” means taking the point of view of the native, while “etic” is the point of view of the one who analyzes). The interpretation and explanation of the facts came from the informants themselves, generating spaces of trust that made it possible for the wisdom of the locality to emerge. This knowledge was the starting point for building her artistic interpretation on the stages of Chile and abroad.
It is important to emphasize in Margot Loyola’s stage interpretations, the evident understanding of the symbiosis that occurs between the artist and the informant. The understanding of the distinction between an artistic space and one of community life, where cultural expression does not have a stage purpose. On stage there is extra-daily technique, learned in the academy. Voice and body educated at the service of a folkloric expression that goes through the unavoidable sensitive subjectivity of the artist. Without forgetting the respect for those materialities that represent and identify people, therefore, the creative component of the interpreter is based on these particularities related to the culture treated.
Margot Loyola taught in higher education institutions and also in many informal spaces throughout Chile. Escuelas de Estaciones at the University of Chile, the Music Institute at the Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaíso, teacher training courses, folklore groups, etc. Her emphasis, in terms of teaching and learning dance, was not only on the form and style in question, but above all on character. What each performer imprints, giving expressive particularity, animating style and form. Here lies the deep understanding of the immateriality of folklore dance culture.
In the creative field, Margot Loyola was one of the first singer-songwriters with a folkloric root, as we would say today. She composed music for traditional dances such as refalosas, cachimbos and others, as well as tunes that are considered folkloric because they are created with traditional molds. Her creation was also reflected in teaching and learning methodologies, field research methodologies and ways of approaching the interpretation of a traditional repertoire.
To value folklore culture on Margot Loyola’s birthday is not only a recognition of a National Arts Award winner, but also to recognize the importance of the diversity of all popular wisdom, the variety of representative expressions and the ways of life of the peoples that provide a sense of belonging and social cohesion.
-
The content expressed in this opinion column is the sole responsibility of its author, and does not necessarily reflect the editorial line or position of The Counter.
#Folklore #Culture #Day #Margot #Loyola #indivisible #legacy