“Our origins are at risk”: Brazilian singer-songwriter Taïs Reganelli is in India, here is why Pune should listen to her

Reganelli is back in India for Ruhaniyat, a festival that lights up evenings across India with songs and messages of the great mystics and indigenous thinkers from across centuries. The theme of Reganelli’s performance is “Whispers Through Rainforests”. Ruhaniyat will be held at The Empress Garden on February 14, 6.15 pm.

“Brazil is vast, just like India, and this results in a very diverse musical history, with many traditions and roots. As the Ruhaniyat festival had nature and our origins as its main theme, I chose to bring songs from different regions of Brazil. I fear that the preservation of our origins is increasingly at risk,” says Reganelli.

She adds that this very week, indigenous peoples in Brazil had protested to protect the Tapajós River from a project that aimed to drain its waters in favour of agribusiness. According to news reports, the government had given in and halted a plan to dredge the Tapajós River, which is an important tributary of the Amazon.

“Indigenous communities are losing more and more of their land. This is the region where my mother was born. Therefore, I bring a song called Benke, which is the name of a curumim (the term used to refer to an Indigenous child) who lived close to where my mother was born. I also bring a song by an artist from Pernambuco, representing the mangroves. I chose as well a song from Rio de Janeiro, so emblematic to the entire world, and finally, São Paulo,” says Reganelli.

She is that type of artist which cannot separate music from themselves, their bodies and minds. “Music brings me balance, responsibility, affection and release. It is almost like therapy or a prayer. I find music in everything: in the sounds of nature, of animals, of the wind, of the rain. But I also perceive music in colours and scents. I locate and associate physical time, people, and places through music,” she says.

Listening to Raganelli is a way to be transported into the mystical norms of nature and care about the anthropomorphic degradation of a pristine world. “We do not necessarily need to compose protest songs for our issues to be highlighted, although such songs are extremely important. I am here for Ruhaniyat, and the other international guest artist, Hei Man, performs instrumental music. Her instrument evokes movements of nature, calm water, a storm, a wave. I firmly believe that art makes people more sensitive, and sensitivity leads to a more empathetic way of seeing the world. Care begins from within and extends outward,” she says.