{"id":5383,"date":"2016-03-08T06:45:39","date_gmt":"2016-03-08T11:45:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=5383"},"modified":"2016-03-29T07:51:35","modified_gmt":"2016-03-29T11:51:35","slug":"landfill-harmonic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=5383","title":{"rendered":"Landfill Harmonic"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"music,In the early 20th<\/sup> Century, Marcel Duchamp transformed everyday objects into art he called \u201cready-mades.\u201d The documentary Landfill Harmonic<\/a><\/em> (trailer) shows how garbage from a Paraguayan landfill can be made into musical instruments.<\/p>\n

The full-length film focuses on the residents of Cateura, near Asunci\u00f3n, Paraguay\u2019s capital. They live next to a large landfill, where workers scavenge and sell recyclable detritus to make a living. Despite the dispiriting surroundings\u2014ramshackle houses, dismal landscape\u2014the people have a burgeoning enthusiasm for students\u2019 music education. But they are too poor to buy enough instruments.<\/p>\n

Musical director Favio Ch\u00e1vez turns to a garbage picker, Nicol\u00e1s (Col\u00e1) Gom\u00e9z, who begins to fashion instruments from curated debris\u2014flutes made from water pipes, oil and paint cans for violins and cellos, and discarded X-rays for drum skins.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe world sends us garbage\u2026we send back music,\u201d says Ch\u00e1vez.<\/p>\n

Slowly, the Recycled Orchestra of Cateura<\/a> hones its skills and sound. Then, a random social media connection catapults them into world view. The students pose with the Paraguayan flag decorated with the logo of the heavy metal group Megadeth, whose music they discovered on old cassettes found in the landfill. A Megadeth member sees the post and decides to visit the students. In 2014, he invites the Recycled Orchestra to join the band members on tour in Denver and accompany them on a song. This event propels more media coverage (Wired, Mother Jones, NPR, 60 Minutes)<\/em> and invitations from across the globe to perform, including at Phoenix\u2019s Musical Instrument Museum<\/a> in 2013.<\/p>\n

Now, most of these music makers are committed to careers in music education and performance.<\/p>\n

According to the film\u2019s website, \u201cthe Orchestra has grown from just a few musicians to over 35. Their recent fame has piqued the interest of the families and children of the community in such a way that many children are now enrolling for music classes. The music school of Cateura does not have its own building yet, but teaches music and how to build recycled instruments to more than 200 kids of the landfill.\u201d<\/p>\n

The documentary, which benefitted from a Kickstarter campaign that raised more than $200,000, has earned acclaim at independent and children\u2019s film festivals around the world. Most recently, it won a 2016 Director\u2019s Choice Award<\/em> at the Sedona International Film Festival.<\/p>\n

This review is by Tucson-based guest reviewer Jodi Goalstone, who writes the highly entertaining blog <\/em>Going Yard, Offbeat Baseball Musings<\/em><\/a> and is bringing us the best from the recent Sedona IFF.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the early 20th Century, Marcel Duchamp transformed everyday objects into art he called \u201cready-mades.\u201d The documentary Landfill Harmonic (trailer) shows how garbage from a Paraguayan landfill can be made into musical instruments. The full-length film focuses on the residents … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Landfill Harmonic - one man's trash is another man's violin, clarinet, cello, drumkit . . .","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[58,207,104],"tags":[166,416],"class_list":["post-5383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-documentaries","category-music","category-the-morgue","tag-creativity","tag-real-life"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-1oP","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5383"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5383\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5385,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5383\/revisions\/5385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}