Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collection, 2015.196.383.1, Connecticut Historical S ...

Images(2)

Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collection, 2015.196.383.2, Connecticut Historical S ...

SNEAP Festival 2005: Joao Cerilo Monteiro, Eurico Semedo, and Maria Rodrigues

SubjectPortrait of John Monteiro (Cape Verdean)

SubjectPortrait of Eurico Semedo (Cape Verdean)

SubjectPortrait of Maria Rodrigues (Cape Verdean)

Date2005 and 2008

Mediumborn digital images

ClassificationsGraphics

Credit LineConnecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collections

CopyrightIn Copyright

Object number2015.196.383.1-.2

Description2015.196.383.1: Image showing Joao Cerilo Monteiro playing gaeta and Eurico Semedo playing ferinho onstage on June 19, 2005, at the Portuguese Club in Newington during the Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program Showcase.

2015.196.383.2: Image showing Joao Cerilo Monteiro, Eurico Semedo, and Maria Rodrigues after performing at the Lowell Folk Festival in Massachusetts in July 2008.

NotesSubject Note for 2015.196.383.1: The Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program is a CCHAP initiative since 1997 that fosters the sharing of community-based traditional (folk) artistic skills through the apprenticeship learning model of regular, intensive, one-on-one teaching by a skilled mentor artist to a student/apprentice. The program pairs master artists from Rhode Island, Massachusetts, or Connecticut with apprentices from one of the other states, as a way to knit together members of the same community or group across state lines. Teaching and learning traditional arts help to sustain cultural expressions that are central to a community, while also strengthening festivals, arts activities, and events when master/apprentice artists perform or demonstrate results of their cooperative learning to public audiences. The Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program at the Connecticut Historical Society manages the program in collaboration with the Folk Arts Program at the Massachusetts Cultural Council and independent folklorist Winifred Lambrecht who has a deep knowledge of the folk arts landscape of Rhode Island. Primary funding for the program comes from the National Endowment for the Arts, with support also from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts, the Institute for Community Research, and the Connecticut Historical Society.

Subject Note for 2015.196.383.1: The Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program held an all-day program showcase on June 19, 2005, at the Portuguese Club in Newington. Many of the artists involved in the program over the years demonstrated, displayed, and performed their art work for a public audience. Featured performing artists in the festival included Joao Monteiro, Cape Verdean accordion player and singer (Pawtucket, RI); Raquel Figueiredo and Warm Heart, Cape Verdean dancers (Waterbury, CT); Lydia Perez, Puerto Rican bomba dancer (Providence, RI); Bob Livingston, Square Dance and Quadrille caller (Middletown, CT); Rosaire LeHoux, Quebecois fiddler (Willimantic, CT); Daniel Boucher, Franco-American fiddler (Bristol, CT); Nancy Lemme, Franco-American fiddler (West Warwick, RI); Danzas Peruanas, Peruvian dance group (Hartford, CT); Raouf Mama, African storyteller (Willimantic, CT); Joao dos Santos, Portuguese fandango dancer (Newington, CT); Jason Roseman, Trinidad steel pan maker and player (Pawtucket, RI); Kelvin Griffith, Trinidad steel pan maker and player (East Hartford, CT); Somaly and Khandarith Hay, Cambodian singer and dancer (Waterford, CT); David Ayriyan, Armenian kamanche player (Johnston, RI); Will Hare, Irish flute player (Storrs, CT); Lao Narthasin, Laotian dance group (New Britain, CT); and the Second Baptist Male Chorus, African-American gospel quartet (New Britain, CT).

Featured visual artists included Marek Czarnecki, Polish iconographer (Meriden, CT); Eldrid Arntzen, Norwegian rosemaler (Watertown, CT); William Cumpiano, Puerto Rican luthier (Easthampton, MA); Graciela Quiñones Rodríguez, Puerto Rican cuatro maker (East Hartford, CT); and Blia and Pa Koua Vang, Hmong needlework and musical instruments (Providence, RI).

The festival was supported by United Arts 2005 through the Greater Hartford Arts Council, the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, and the Institute for Community Research.

Biographical Note: John Monteiro, stage name Joao Cerilo and also known as “Mr. Po D’Terra,” is a Cape Verdean musician originally from the island of Santiago. He lives and works in Rhode Island, where he has performed both traditional and creative synthesizer-driven versions of Cape Verdean music and dance forms such as funaná, tchabeta, and batuku in clubs and community settings. Joao Cerilo, who plays gaeta, a Cape Verdean accordion, has produced several albums from 1981 to 2015. His performances have taken place at the Working Waterfront Festival in New Bedford, Massachusetts, Accordion Festivals in Texas and New York, Cape Verdean Independence Day at Fox Point, Rhode Island, the Lowell Folk Festival in Massachusetts in 2008, Cape Verdean clubs and restaurants in New England and internationally. He formed a traditional music group known as Pilon Batuku, featuring his cousins Eurico and Jose Semedo playing ferinho, a scraped iron stick that is often heard in Cape Verdean music. Pilon Batuku often included dance performances by New Bedford-based Cape Verdean dancer Maria Rodrigues. CCHAP and colleague Winifred Lambrecht encouraged Joao’s traditional music, recording him and including him in the Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program four times, to collaborate and teach Eurico and José Semedo funaná, the Waterbury dance group Warm Heart, and the Norwich dance group Estrellas, from 1998-2001 and 2006-2007.

Biographical Note: Maria Rodrigues performs traditional funana and batuku, African-influenced dances from the Cape Verde island of Santiago, with the group Pilon Batuku led by Joao Cerilo. They have performed at the Lowell Folk Festival and the Working Waterfront Festival in Massachusetts, with Maria singing as well as dancing. Maria and Joao Cerilo were mentors to the Norwich, Connecticut student dance group Estrellas under the Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program in 2006-2007. On her native island of Santiago, people get together most evenings to play music and dance; batuku and funana are emblematic of the high energy style popular in clubs as well as in the hills and villages. Known as Queen Tida, Maria came to the United States when she was seventeen and lives in New Bedford. She and Pilon Batuku are beloved artists in the Cape Verdean clubs of Pawtucket and New Bedford.

Additional audio, video, and/or photographic materials exist in the archive relating to these artists.

Cataloging Note: This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services MA-245929-OMS-20.

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