Soy Andina: Dance Documentary
A year after screening at international film festivals and throughout Peru (on tours sponsored by U.S. Embassy), “Soy Andina” is being released on DVD. Writer Rick Vecchio sat down with the filmmaker Mitchell Teplitsky to talk about his film’s achievements.
Eight years ago, Mitch Teplitsky quit his job as marketing director of Lincoln Center’s Film Society and, camera in hand, accompanied his best friend, Nélida Silva, to her birthplace in the Peruvian Andes. He went to document Nélida’s homecoming and the fulfillment of her lifelong dream to host the annual fiesta patronal — a week of music, dance and ritual honoring of the town’s patron saint. At the time, Teplitsky thought the project would take perhaps a year to complete. But the production soon turned into a six-year odyssey, and the resulting documentary, Soy Andina, transformed his life. One year and thirty-two screenings after Soy Andina officially debuted at Lincoln Center, Teplitsky is back in Peru, promoting the documentary’s release on DVD.
Soy Andina is the intertwining story of two New York dancers who travel to Peru and experience a cultural-reawakening. Nélida, a founder of the Ballet Folklorico Peru dance troop, returns home 15 years after she emigrated to America. Cynthia Paniagua, a modern dancer raised in Queens by a Peruvian mother and Puerto Rican father, is inspired by Nélida to apply for a Fulbright scholarship. With Nélida’s encouragement and guidance, she embarks on her own Peruvian journey to “quench a burning desire to know the real Peru, to unearth the mystery of the dances.” Teplitsky sat down with South American Explorer magazine in SAE’s Lima Clubhouse to talk about Soy Andina’s success.
SAE: What do you think about the impact Soy Andina has had?
Mitchell Teplitsky: One of the amazing impacts of the film has been the way it has connected people, and even institutions. So many people have met through the process of making and showing this film. The whole project has become much more than just a 70-minute documentary. It’s really built this enormous community of people.
An example of this is me meeting my wife, Doris, interviewing her during the making of the film, or Cynthia who is now the mother of a 2-year-old child whose father worked with us on the production here in Peru. I mean, it has changed people’s lives that way. People who have wanted to come back to Peru, and in fact have come back to Peru after being away for decades as a result of seeing the film and being inspired to reconnect to their own roots.
SAE: How did Soy Andina start?
MT: The genesis of the film is my friendship with Nélida. We met in 1989 in New York at a place called the International Center, where I was volunteering as an English conversation partner. I was looking for somebody to practice Spanish with and I was introduced to her and we became friends. And over time and over the years I started to meet her friends and her family, and the Diaspora and the Peruvian immigrant community around New York. I would go to fiestas, I would go to her performances of Peruvian folk dance, and that’s how I got connected to Peru and to her.
Many years later, she shared her dream with me. She wanted to return to her Andean birthplace - Llamellin, a remote village in Ancash, to be the host of a fiesta patronal, and I immediately agreed to go.
I started thinking about her as maybe a good story to film because I personally love documentaries. I was interested in cross-cultural stories. I had seen Buena Vista Social Club. I knew that kind of journey film to another culture with art and music could be very entertaining and emotional and moving. And I knew that few Americans knew anything about Peru, other than Machu Picchu and terrorism. I was further inspired by wanting to produce my own film, not just market other people’s films. I was kind of looking for a story that I could sink my teeth into.
(Photo: Florencia Castello) Click on image to enlarge
SAE: The movie lends itself to a communal experience for audiences watching it. The heartfelt discussions that it evokes during the Q&A after the screenings often last twice as long as the film. What do you attribute that to?
MT: The film I think speaks to the universal theme of belonging and ‘where is home?,’ and a sort of universal desire to want to belong to something. And nostalgia. But also people love the dance. On a lighter note, people find the film entertaining. They really are delighted. They are upbeat. They smile, they laugh. So, dance has a very universal appeal, I think.
People are very effusive, I mean they really like the film. We hear a lot of praise. That’s great, and I think it’s authentic and I think it reflects the majority opinion. But also it’s very personal. It’s very emotional. What happens is people start to share their own stories, how they relate to the film, where they came from, their relationship that they had with their hometown. That’s true whether they came from the Sierra of Peru and migrated to Lima or whether they’re an American.
SOY ANDINA on DVD
To see a calendar of upcoming screenings, join the mailing list, and to order a copy of the DVD visit www.soyandina.com. If you happen to be in Peru, the next screening is on 23rd October at the Hotel Andino in Huaraz. The night starts with a dance workshop at 3pm, with the screening at 7pm followed by a Q&A afterwards with the filmmaker.
SAE’s Role in Soy Andina:
“The South American Explorers Club really had a very important role to play in the
making of the film. It was like my office for two years when I was living and working in
Peru. The club is where I came to do my work, with Internet access and it gave me a safe refuge in a clean, safe place. I don’t know where else I would actually have been able to do my work.
So SAE was really like a lifesaver to me.” Mitchell Teplitsky
Category: Volunteering
