Don Don, don or DON and variants may refer to: Places *County Donegal, Ireland, Chapman code DON *Don (river), a river in European Russia *Don River (disambiguation), several other rivers with the name *Don, Benin, a town in Benin *Don, Dang, a vill ...

Pedro Dimas (born 1934) is a Mexican

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

ist,

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

ist,

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

, and

preservationist Preservationist is generally understood to mean ''historic preservationist'': one who advocates to preserve architecturally or historically significant buildings, structures, objects, or sites from demolition or degradation. Historic preservation us ...

of traditional music from the

Purépecha The Purépecha (endonym pua, P'urhepecha ) are a group of indigenous people centered in the northwestern region of Michoacán, Mexico, mainly in the area of the cities of Cherán and Pátzcuaro. They are also known by the pejorative "Tarascan ...

, an

indigenous Indigenous may refer to: *Indigenous peoples *Indigenous (ecology), presence in a region as the result of only natural processes, with no human intervention *Indigenous (band), an American blues-rock band *Indigenous (horse), a Hong Kong racehorse ...

culture in the Mexican

state State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * ''Our S ...

Michoacán Michoacán, formally Michoacán de Ocampo (; Purépecha: ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Michoacán de Ocampo ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Michoacán de Ocampo), is one of the 32 states which comprise the Federal Entities of ...

Life and career

Dimas was born in the village of Ichupio,

, near the city of Tzintzuntzan, to a musical family, and received only two years of formal education. While in his teens, Dimas learned to play the

mandolin A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 ...

and

, initially to provide music for folkdancing performances. In 1952, Dimas began to play with a group from Santa Fe de la Laguna. The name reflects the indigenous utopian cooperative villages or "hospitales" created by Bishop Quiroga in the Michoacán area in the late 15th century. Later, he began playing with a

mariachi Mariachi (, , ) is a genre of regional Mexican music that dates back to at least the 18th century, evolving over time in the countryside of various regions of western Mexico. The usual mariachi group today consists of as many as eight violins, t ...

in Tzintzuntzan, and learned many styles from them. When the group went to

Mexico City Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley o ...

, Dimas stayed behind to farm and fish. As an adult, Dimas composed and choreographed the folk dance "Dance of the Tumbis", which represents the life of a fisherman on Lake

Pátzcuaro Pátzcuaro () is a city and municipality located in the state of Michoacán. The town was founded sometime in the 1320s, at first becoming the capital of the Purépecha Empire and later its ceremonial center. After the Spanish took over, Vasco de ...

. Dimas currently performs with his band Mirando el Lago throughout Mexico and the United States.

Preservation of Purépecha culture

The

Purépecha language Purépecha (also ''P'urhépecha'' , tsz, Phorhé or ''Phorhépecha''), often called Tarascan, which is a pejorative term coined by Spanish colonizers ( es, Tarasco), is a language isolate or small language family that is spoken by some 140,000 ...

was still spoken by somewhat fewer than 100,000 people at the end of the 20th century, mostly in small rural villages. But while the language thrived, the traditional music of the Purépecha was threatened by the popularity of other styles. Dimas sees his composition of new songs in the traditional genre "a form of rescue."

References

*Stavely, Zaide
''Playing Music to the Scent of Marigolds: The Day of the Dead in Michoacán''
Fiddler Magazine (Fall 2005) *Stavely, Zaide

Fiddler Magazine (Spring 2005) Dimas, Pedro Dimas, Pedro Dimas, Pedro Dimas, Pedro Dimas, Pedro Dimas, Pedro Dimas, Pedro Dimas, Pedro Dimas, Pedro Dimas, Pedro Mexican people of Purépecha descent 21st-century violinists 21st-century male musicians {{guitarist-stub