The Bliss Center for the Performing Arts in Belize City was the venue for the debut screening of Punta Soul: a documentary by Belizean, Nyasha Laing, paying tribute to the Garinagu and their gift of music to the world.
The 27-minute documentary features Garifuna music legends such as Paul Nabor, Andy Palacio, Aurelio Martinez, Chico Ramos, Pen Cayetano, Aziatic, and rising star – Deseree Diego, one of the women featured prominently on the Umalali Women’s Project.
Laing, the director/producer, spent three years shooting footage from coast-to-coast in the US, in New York and Los Angeles, and in cultural hotspots in Belize – Barranco, Hopkins, Dangriga and Belize City.
The scenes depicted include the Garifuna journey, the arrival of Punta Rock, the artists’ struggle for an independent voice, and the shift from punta to Garifuna soul music – the paranda.
Before an audience of at least 200 people at the Bliss on Friday, November 7, she was able to showcase not just her first video production, but also the stories of several Garifuna legends interwoven into the documentary – received with a rousing applause by the audience.
“Punta Soul is the story of a music in migration,” says Nyasha.
She describes punta rock as “…an electric, percussive sound rooted in the centuries old Afro-indigenous traditions of the Garifuna people of Central America.”
Riding the tide of popularity that punta rock has enjoyed since the 1980’s, the more soulful paranda has also arisen to take its own prestigious place on the world stage. Exported to the global scene by icons such as Paul Nabor and later by Andy Palacio, this deeper, more introspective type of music has touched people in places where even the punta could not penetrate.
The documentary, Punta Soul, is the story of evolution, exemplified in the person of the late Andy Palacio, whose journey as a musician epitomizes that migration from up-tempo punta to more subdued paranda, as an artist searches his own heart and the hearts of those he entertains to find his unique place in the scheme of things.
Even as the music has made its journey, so have the people – starting from Yurumein (St. Vincent) to places like Paris, Germany, Canada…while still retaining the Afro-centric essence that is their own, despite the geographical migration thousands of miles around the globe.
Credits for the production also go to Cybel Martin and Khary Jones (two young filmmakers from NY) and Dennis Peyrefitte of Belize. Brent Toombs edited the film.
Nyasha Laing, a Yale University graduate who recently migrated from New York City to Belize, is a lawyer, writer, and filmmaker. She is currently working with the Institute of Creative Arts in the programs department, and she is the founder of Paranda Media and The Global Parish Project – formed with the intention to promote our common heritage.
Punta Soul was also submitted to the World Music Exp (WOMEX) and screened as a part of the WOMEX Film Market/IMZ Film Screenings in Seville, Spain, held between October 29 and November 2.