Precedents to the III Cultural Market          |    Versão em Português

The Cultural Market was created to break a critical geographic and cultural isolation of Latin America, with the intention of establishing solid conditions for the exchange of information, development of workshops and internships, as well as the creation of collaborative projects. In its first edition in December of 1999, the Market brought to Brazil representatives of prominent cultural organizations from Latin America, the Caribbean, the United States and Europe.

In a first assessment of the transactions carried out during the market, we registered several contracts for dance companies and theater and music groups which participated in festivals and tours through various countries, with many exchanges between festivals.

Artists who performed at the Market, such as Virgínia Rodrigues (Brazil) and Suzana Baca (Peru) were contracted for performances in other international events; small music companies from Chile, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, Bolivia and Argentina had the opportunity to make contact with music markets in Europe; institutional contacts between exchange networks such as Rede Latino-americana, Rede Brasil, ITEM (Europe) and NCCC (United States) made commitments of cooperation.

In the sme way, the exchange between the Ministries of Culture of several countries of Latin America was solidified, with the intent of amplifying the distribution of cultural products, along with public relations work for national dance and theater companies, involving organizations such as the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes (Mexico), Iberarte (Spain), Fundación para Las Artes (Puerto Rico) and Funarte (Brazil).

Other important aspects of the Market, which should be emphasized here, concern the active participation of governmental agencies, businesses and foundations in the construction and strengthening of processes, as well as the fundamental support from the Ford Foundation, which made possible the agglutination of such diverse institutions and the various artistic projects of the Latin American Cultural Market.

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