Art In This Present Moment
Mother and Son Duet Bridges the Gap Between Old and New
Mothers often have close relationships with their sons, but in the case of Maria Biagetti Cortez and Vladimir Garrido-Biagetti, that bond is deeply immersed in their culture and music.
Together they are Ina-Yukka (“ina” meaning mother in Lakota and other languages and “yukka” meaning son in the Aymara), a mother and son duo that perform traditional folk music from South America.
Since moving to the Twin Cities from Chile in 2005, the pair have been bringing together the sound of folkloric harmonies with traditional flutes, percussion, outfits and dance along activism driven lyrics from the “Nueva Cancion” movement. This movement started in South America in the late 1950s and early 1960s protesting the political dictatorships and social conditions impacting rural areas.
“For my son it’s revolution, for me it’s evolution,” said Maria about the folk music of the movement.
With support from Art in This Present Moment, they will embark on making new songs, embracing the struggles of their past while looking towards brighter futures that encompass their learnings along the way.
“We love bringing the past to the present...We come from a different part of the world, and we learned from this community. And now we are combining everything we know into new original songs.”
Vladimir Garrido-Biagetti
About the Organization
Border CrosSing is an award-winning Minnesota-based arts nonprofit whose mission is to integrate historically segregated audiences and musicians through the performance of choral music. They envision a landscape where singers and audiences more closely reflect the racial and cultural composition of the Twin Cities.
Art In This Present Moment
This project is part of Art in This Present Moment, an initiative of the Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation. We provided grants to three Minnesota-based nonprofit organizations to fund work by BIPOC artists who are changing and challenging dominant narratives through their craft.
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