Life Onboard LAST UPDATE  June 3, 2010
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March 2, 2010 Yagi Nobuyo and Bruno Serrano – A lyrical look at Chile’s history
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Many Peace Boat participants were familiar with salsa and tango, but Yagi Nobuyo taught them all about other forms of Latin music, such as cumbia, rumba and milonga.
Music has long been a tool for revolution in Latin America, particularly since the 1960s. Back then, and still today, music is tied to social change, says singer Yagi Nobuyo – a guest educator onboard the 68th voyage, for the journey around South America. “You can’t talk about politics without talking about music,” she insists.

Ms Yagi originally studied to be an interpreter at university in the 1980s, and went to Mexico to master Spanish. A music professor at her school in Mexico encouraged her take a singing course, saying it would help Ms Yagi improve her pronunciation. This led her to develop a love of Latin music and to discover her beautiful singing voice.

As Peace Boat made its way along the coast of Chile, she introduced participants to South America’s musical revolution and, in particular, the Nueva Cancion Chilena (New Chilean Song) movement; a collection of performers who wrote and sang about social change, class struggle and the fight against capitalism.
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Ms Yagi put so much emotion and passion into her performances that participants continuously packed the audience for her concerts and lectures.

This wave included composers who came from humble beginnings and knew the hardships poor people had to face; singers such as Violeta Parra, who grew up as a beggar, Ms Yagi says, sang about Chile’s unions and social movements. Parra once said, about her music, “I do not play the guitar for applause. I sing the difference between what is true and what is false; otherwise I do not sing.”

And then, there was Victor Jara – one of Ms Yagi’s favourite singers of the movement. Jara was a supporter of communism because he believed it was in the best interest of the nation’s poor. “Many of you may think that Victor Jara is a strong person, but he wrote mostly romantic songs,” she explained to participants.
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Guest educator Bruno Serrano, a celebrated poet and author, is writing a day-to-day account of life in Chile, from the time of the coup until the Chile’s first democratic election –17 years later.
Ms Yagi has always felt a connection to Jara’s music, but she has longed for a more personal bond to the singer. Over lunch one day with Peace Boat guest educator Bruno Serrano she found that link. Mr Serrano – a poet, film maker and former body guard for late-Chilean president Salvador Allende – told her that not only had he known Jara, he was one of the last people to see the beloved musician before he died. “I had the sad privilege of meeting him at the stadium on the day of the coup,” Mr Serrano laments. During the September 11, 1973 military coup that led to Allende’s assassination, soldiers, under the leadership of General Augosto Pinochet, rounded up the president’s entourage and supporters to be tortured, interrogated or – in cases such as Jara’s – killed. Pinochet’s soldiers shot Jara to death five days after the coup began: Mr Serrano was tortured as well, but soldiers later released him.

Allende with his Unidad Popular (Popular Unity) party attracted a following of young people who wanted Chile to move away from the United States and capitalism. “The socialism that Allende was promoting,” Mr Serrano says, “was very different than the socialism of the USSR and China. He was promoting a very just society: It was based on democratic participation.”

This was what the Nueva Cancion movement supported, which was seen as a threat. Pinochet, following the overthrow cracked down on artists and performers: “All folk music was forbidden to be played,” Ms Yagi explained, “including songs using the words freedom or love.” But, as much as the notion that revolutionary music dies under heavy-handed rule, she insists the movement grows stronger. “It didn’t mean the end of the campaign against the government and, actually, the movement expanded throughout Latin America.” Victor Jara, for example, stayed true to the movement until the very end of his life, even singing political songs while under arrest and being tortured. He has been an inspiration to many singers since his death – including Ms Yagi – and numerous musicians have composed tunes about his legacy.