National and municipal actions

Lisboa deve ser, como sempre foi ao longo da sua história, uma cidade de encontros, um ponto de união, uma capital do Mundo. Lisboa, cidade de tolerância, deve assumir-se claramente como uma grande capital intercultural mundial, ouvindo o que todos têm para nos dizer sobre os mais diversos tipos de expressão (António Costa321_{, in ACIDI} 2008: 7).

National and municipal cultural politics in Lisbon, such as those implied in the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue (2008) and in the strategic document

320 _{The voice-over states that “multiculturalism uses music as an element of integration” (transcribed from} documentary).

321 _{António Costa was elected Prime Minister of Portugal in late 2015, after having served two terms and} a half (2007-15) as Lisbon’s mayor. In my opinion, his discourse as it is presented here echoes Expo‘98, which may not come as a surprise, given that Costa was the government official responsible for this event as minister of the XIII Constitutional Government (1997-99).

‘Estratégias para a Cultura em Lisboa’ (2009), have addressed issues of interculturality. Below, I deal with recent events that consider this condition. My aim is to point out how Lisbon’s national and municipal authorities have received or promoted ideas of

lusofonia, particularly in musical grounds.

The European Year of Intercultural Dialogue (2008) encouraged citizens to learn from different cultural traditions322_{.In Lisbon, ACIDI organized this event, hosting an}

intercultural concert in Teatro Camões323 _{(together with RTP and Associação Sons da}

Lusofonia) and released the record Juntos na Diversidade. The Municipality of Lisbon324_{, together with several voluntary associations, coordinated various events such}

as Festival ImigrArte’s 2nd _{edition and held the conference Da Diversidade Cultural à}

Inclusão: Dar Oportunidades às Diferenças/Qualificar o Diálogo Intercultural325_.

In May 2009, a cultural project planned by the CPLP and the Municipality of Lisbon (in partnership with the Portuguese Ministry of Culture, RTP África, Fundação Luso-brasileira, and Missão do Brasil junto a CPLP) linked lusofonia and the city’s maritime imaginary under the title ‘Mares: Olhares da Língua Portuguesa’ (La Barre and Vanspauwen 2013: 127). According to the program folder, the goal was to “encorajar as novas gerações de artistas e agentes culturais do mundo da lusofonia a integrar o Mar no seu imaginário”326_.

A month later, in June 2009, the Municipality of Lisbon published the strategic document ‘Estratégias para a Cultura em Lisboa’327_{. Although this document dedicates}

a specific section on music (by an unnamed author), it does not name the concept of

lusofonia328_{. Apart from a reference to Buraka Som Sistema - “que se apropri[a] de}

sonoridades de fora da Europa, mas que encontr[a] em Lisboa uma primeira paragem europeia” (Câmara Municipal de Lisboa 2009: 51), lusophone musics are only vaguely referenced as “mutações [que são] muito significativas e pela primeira vez ultrapassam

322 _{Available at http://www.eurocid.pt/pls/wsd/wsdwcot0.detalhe_area?p_cot_id=4135}

323 _{RTP and ACIDI produced a “espectáculo com a participação de artistas conceituados e de novos} valores das várias comunidades imigrantes em Portugal.” http://www.rtp.pt/programa/tv/p24620 324 _{Represented by the Conselho Municipal das Comunidades Imigrantes e Minorias Étnicas, renamed} into Conselho Municipal para a Interculturalidade e a Cidadania in 2010. Available at http://www.cm- lisboa.pt/viver/intervencao-social/interculturalidade/conselho-municipal-para-a-interculturalidade-e-a- cidadania-cmic

325 _{Available at http://www.lerparaver.com/eventos/conferencia-diversidade-cultural-inclusao-dar} 326 _{Available at http://sapoblogs.do.sapo.pt/mares0921.pdf}

327 _{The project was directed by a team consisting of Dinâmia - Centro de Estudos sobre a Mudança} Socioeconómica (ISCTE), Direcção Municipal de Cultura (DMC) and EGEAC - Empresa de Gestão de Equipamentos e Animação Cultural during the preceding eight months, in which artists as well as cultural agents and producers were heard.Carlos Martins (Ass. Sons da Lusofonia) was one of the consultants. In preparation, public discussions (one of which in Cinema São Jorge, January 2009) were also held. 328 _{Câmara Municipal de Lisboa 2009: 51 ; http://cultura.cm-lisboa.pt (site offline at time of writing).}

a categoria de música ‘étnica’ e world, um rótulo que os primeiros projectos que Lisboa exportou carregavam” (ibid.). The new generation of fadistas in Lisbon instead gets an explicit mention, performing “pelos palcos de todo o mundo, também conseguindo contribuir para uma imagem diferente da que Lisboa outrora exportava” (ibid.). Perhaps an implicit reference to the existing circuit of resident musicians from Portuguese- speaking countries can be read in the mentioning of a “mercado da música ligeira e popular que, embora com características diferentes do resto do país, é uma área altamente robusta, empregando muitíssimos profissionais (embora nem todos em regime full-time)” (ibid.). In its conclusion, the strategic document points at Lisbon’s contemporary intercultural production as a factor that can be further potentialized in valorizing the city’s representation (ibid.: 93).

Lisboa, numa posição de inevitável centralidade histórica entre Europa, África e América, [tem] um espaço enorme a explorar, de diferenciação e de afirmação externa da sua especificidade. [A] produção cultural da cidade está imbuída destes cruzamentos e destas especificidades que importa potenciar numa lógica [de] afirmação das competências mais cosmopolitas da cidade actual e dos seus actores culturais (ibid.).

To this end, it offers recommendations on three levels: the city’s identities and memories; its diversity and multiculturalism; its capital status and density of its social relations (ibid.: 97). The interrelation between these three levels allows for “fomentar novos e prometedores campos criativos, em áreas como a produção transcultural ou o cruzamento disciplinar”, thus promoting affirmation and external differentiation of the city and its cultural agents (ibid.).

Even though the concept of lusofonia is not explicitly used, it seems to be constitutive as conditio sine qua non for Lisbon’s contemporary intercultural condition. However, as is suggested by an unnamed author in EE1 - Promoção das Competências Cosmopolitas da Cidade, Lisbon’s policies regarding interculturalism are still (too) incipient:

Atendendo à inescapável dimensão intercultural crescente da cidade - mas ainda assim não comparável a outras cidades europeias - Lisboa deverá encontrar formas de promoção das suas competências cosmopolitas[:] a promoção da tolerância, a compreensão da diversidade, o combate à exclusão social, a promoção de políticas de proximidade, o acesso à cultura, etc. (ibid.: 105)

This delay calls for a revision of the city’s cultural governance model (EE4 - Revisão do Modelo de Governança Cultural da Cidade), which should essentially be

“estruturada numa lógica bottom-up, de devolução de poder à sociedade, cidadãos e agentes culturais,” says the document (ibid.: 107). Besides policy makers, research institutions, along with cultural and institutional agents of the city and the rest of civil society, have a key role here (ibid.: 105). To my knowledge, music researchers were however not actively represented.

The idea for Africa.Cont329_{, a new center of contemporary Africa in Lisbon,}

promoted by the Municipality of Lisbon and the Portuguese government, arose at the end of the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue. Africa.Cont was effectively created in 2010 by the same EGEAC personnel that organized África Festival between 2005 and 2007 (information retrieved from interview 10). According to the curator Fernandes Dias, Africa.Cont wants to voice the “vontade politica de responder à ausência em Portugal de uma plataforma [para] o desenvolvimento de relações de comunicação, cooperação e interacção entre a Europa, os Países Africanos e as suas diásporas”, equally promoting the “integração e o ‘empowerment’ (empoderamento) das comunidades africanas em Portugal” (Dias 2010).

In September 2010, the Municipality of Lisbon and the Lisbon Tourism Association then opened the Memórias da Cidade - Lisboa Story Centre330_{, at Terreiro}

do Paço, in part referring to the era of Portugal’s maritime expansion, reinforced by the use of a caravel image on its site). The Municipality also made landscape interventions in the city for tourism purposes: first the remodeling of the Terreiro do Paço square itself in 2012 - the location of the former royal palace, rebuilt after the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, and the rehabilitation of Ribeira das Naus331 _{in 2014 - the ship docks}

between Terreiro do Paço and Cais do Sodré - from where the maritime expeditions left in the 1500s332_.

329 _{On December 4-5, 2009, a public debate and conference were held at Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian} to discuss the project’s objectives. Available at http://www.africacont.org/africacont_pt.pdf

330 _{Available at http://www.lisboastorycentre.pt/en/content/lisboa-story-centre#sthash.HX6J77AL.dpuf} 331 _{Available at http://cvc.instituto-camoes.pt/navegaport/e17.html}

332 _{In July 2014, the opening of Ribeira das Naus was accompanied by the exposition ‘Maresias - Lisboa e} o Tejo, 1850-2014’ at Terreiro do Paço. Information retrieved from http://www.cm-

lisboa.pt/noticias/detalhe/article/lisboetas-ganham-a-ribeira-das-naus-exposicao-maresias The reopening was celebrated in the press as “Av. Ribeira das Naus lembrará origens dos Descobrimentos.” Information retrieved from

http://www.dn.pt/inicio/portugal/interior.aspx?content_id=3126376&seccao=Sul

To celebrate this requalification, then-major António Costa launched the idea of having a pole of the Museu da Marinha (Belém) at the site, specifically dedicated to the discoveries era.

Information retrieved from http://www.publico.pt/local/noticia/a-nova-ribeira-das-naus-quer-ser-um- local-de-reencontro-com-o-tejo-e-com-a-historia-1662767

Stressing the place of fado in the lusophone soundscapes of the city, I point out that still in 2010, the Municipality of Lisbon (through EGEAC and Museu do Fado) and the Instituto de Etnomusicologia of Universidade Nova de Lisboa (represented by Rui Vieira Nery and Salwa Castelo-Branco) submitted the application of fado to the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity (UNESCO)333_{. Mariza and Carlos do Carmo}

were chosen as ambassadors to the genre. Fado’s actual recognition by UNESCO in 2011 confirmed its status as Portugal’s musical narrative par excellence, a narrative that was also one of discoveries (La Barre e Vanspauwen 2013: 127), and in part represented interaction with other genres of the lusophone world.

Meanwhile, the Municipality of Lisbon signed a protocol with the European Council to adhere to the Rede de Cidades Interculturais in September 2011334_{, and}

organized FMINT - Fórum Municipal de Interculturalidade in May 2014 and 2015335_.

The Music and Migration volume by ACIDI and INET in 2010, launched in 2011 in Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, also made reference to music expression in the lusophone domain.

The Lisbon Municipality has also increased its receptivity and support for various festivals and music instances that deal with intercultural issues, such as Festival

dos Oceanos 1999, Musidanças 2005, África Festival (2005-2007), Lisboa Mistura

(since 2006), Festival dos Oceanos 2007, Festival Rotas e Rituais (2008-2012), Festival

Todos (2009-), the Festas de Lisboa 2010336_{, the Orquestra Todos}337 _{(2011), Entre}

Mornas e Fados 2010338_{, Festival ImigrArte 2013, Festival Conexão Lusófona 2014,}

333 _{Available at http://www.candidaturadofado.com} 334 _{Available at http://www.vimeo.com/28868052}

335 _{Org. CMIC Conselho Municipal para a Interculturalidade e a Cidadania. Available at http://www.cm-} lisboa.pt/viver/intervencao-social/interculturalidade/forum-municipal-da-interculturalidade-fmint 336 _{Musical evocations onstage included “nomes representantes da cultura lusófona” such as Carlos do} Carmo (P), Carminho (P), Lura (CV-P), and Mart’Nália (B) (daughter of Martinho da Vila) (ibid.). In 2012, Festas de Lisboa featured a concert by Milton Nascimento (B) and the fadistas Ana Moura (P), Carminho (P) and António Zambujo (P), accompanied by the Orquestra Metropolitana de Lisboa. Information retrieved from http://www.vousair.com/musica/3920-festas-de-lisboa-terminam-com-musica- lusofona.html

337 _{An ensemble consisting in part of migrant musicians of Portuguese-speaking countries. Organised by} the Municipality of Lisbon’s GLEM – Gabinete Lisboa Encruzilhada de Mundos e da Academia de Produtores Culturais. Information retrieved from

http://todoscaminhadadeculturas.blogspot.com/2011/06/orquestra-todos-procura-musicos.html

338 _{Organized by Celina Pereira (CV). Invited musicians: Bana (CV), Batucadeiras Voz-d’África (CV),} Cristina Nóbrega (P), Dany Silva (CV), Duarte (P), Maria Alice (CV), Vilma Vieira (CV), and Cao Bei (China). Other partners :RTP África, ACIDI, Embaixada de Cabo Verde em Lisboa, Associação Cabo Verde, Enclave, RDP África, a.o. Information retrieved from http://celinapereira.blogs.sapo.cv

and Festival da Lusofonia de Lisboa 2015 a.o.339_{. I deal with these music events in}

greater detail below.