Creole Mass: Vienna legacy across time

Cross-cultural, transboundary Masterpeace,

cross-cultural transboundary art-bridges with Misa Criolla

This webpage contains images and historical facts from my archives and research, 

which I provide for documentation and promotion purposes

Misa Criolla connects artists from various countries who worked in Vienna at various times,

and all of them have experienced,

survived and documented the horrors of war, violence and destruction in their artistic practices

Misa Criolla, about

In the 1950s, Ariel Ramirez was living as an unknown musician in a monastery in West Germany (Würzburg),. During his walks to the nearby manor house he met the sisters Elisabeth and Regina Brückner, who told him that the beautiful manor house in front of the monastery at the time of National Socialism, was part of a concentration camp and only a few years earlier, although under threat of the death penalty, they both supplied Jewish prisoners with food, night after night, for eight months.´

This tale inspired the musician to compose his first religious work, to write a musical work in honour of these two German sisters:´

"Something profound, religious, in honour of life. Something that includes people beyond their own faith, ethnicity, skin color or origin."

This inspiration became reality in the 1960s.

Misa Criolla was composed as a mass with South American rhythms and musical forms and premiered in 1965 in Düsseldorf, Germany.

It was only in 1968, after Vatican II allowed the use of the vernacular in Catholic churches, that the work was performed for the first time at the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires Argentina, home of composer Ariel Ramirez. At that time, the world-famous Primadonna Biserka Cvejić, who came from Serbia, was a guest there. Inspired by the work,

she came up with the idea of organizing a guest concert in Serbia and contacted the composer Ramirez. She told him about the internationally engaged and acclaimed Serbian conductor Bogdan Babić and his work with the Branko Krsmanović choir, which she recommended as the first foreign performance ensemble, and then received the sheet music and permission from Ramirez.

In 1968, "Misa Criolla" was performed for the first time by a foreign ensemble, University Choir Branko Krsmanović under the direction of conductor Bogdan Babić in Belgrade. It became an instant "hit" and remains a hallmark of the choir to this day. Director Bogdan Babic passed away in 2021.

He was one of the victims of the Nazi-Regime in 1941 who was deported to the camp Staro Sajmiste

 In 1972, Vienna-born pioneer of expressive dance, choreograph and dance pedagogue Ms. Smiljana Mandukić choreographed for her dance ensemble the Misa Criolla, which was performed on the Festival "Rhythms of the xx century". Smiljana Mandukic condemned the war crimes, by composing the dance peace about  terrible acts of violence in concentration camps in her choreographic peace "Sjene " (Shadows)

Just as the composer Ramirez inculturated the folklore elements and rhythms of the country, as well as Spanish as the national language together with Latin in the work, the Vienna-born Jewish  choreographer and teacher, Gertrud Bodenwieser, integrated rhythms and dances from various traditions and cultures in her methodology and choreographic work.

In 1938, Bodenwieser immigrated from Austria to Columbia, then to New Zealand and to Australia. where she settled down and became popular with her "Viennese dances"

 Bodenwieser´s students, in Australia,  New Zealand,  Austria, and beyond, have kept her legacy alive,

Also in Serbia,  the students of the Bodenwieser´s student Ms. Smiljana Mandukić are building on archives in their contemporary art forms. 

The work lives on, the archives, memories and people are tied with experiences of war, and destruction,

but also  with love and vitality found in art and with people whose gracefulness  and courage saved life.

I was a student of Smiljana Mandukic and also one of the youngest members of Mandukic's dance ensemble in 1988-89, during my student days in Belgrade.

Years later,

due to the outbreak of war in my homeland  Yugoslawia, I came to Vienna.

I was in my early 20s at the time...

My interpretation of Missa Criolla includes some personal impressions on this page below.

More about the Bodenwieser-Mandukic cooperation can be found on this website.

Sources: Die Schwestern und der Komponist, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 20./21. Dezember 2014, S. 76) 

 Aaron Mitchell: A Conductor's Guide to Ariel Ramírez's Misa Criolla. Hrsg.: University of Cincinnati. 2009, S. 5–8

 https://sr.wikipedia.org/sr-el