by Alissa Munoz
AFS Intercultural Programs
Wanayran Alvarez Quioto born in Tegucigalpa Honduras......1965
Wanayran Angerer is a mystic, artisan, world traveler, mother, international woman’s rights advocate, and talented singer. She is also an AFS Returnee and former Hosting Coordinator for AFS Honduras. This extraordinary talent has been living in India since 2006 with her husbandn,son and daughter, performing her delectable jazz routine in clubs and festivals all over Delhi and neighboring eastern countries.
Wanny, as she is affectionately known, sings smoky renditions of classics, like Quisaz, Quisaz,(Perhaps Perhaps), infused traditional ballads, and latin-soul. When she isn’t crooning to international audiences, Wanny is involved in a number of advocacy projects including the use of music and arts as a means of developing self-esteem in children.
Wanny was born in Tegucigalpa, Honduras into a diverse community that traces its ethnicity to infusions of Spanish, Native Honduran, and African. The amalgamation of culture had a huge effect on Wanny’s philosophy on life, cultivating appreciation of global connectivity from a very early age – Wanny was young when she first had the experience of recognizing “Different fusions of cultures getting together and because of that situation getting the idea that you not necessarily belong to one group.”
Reared in an AFS Returnee family, Wanny participated as an exchange student with AFS from 1983-1984 in Rockford Illinois. She recalls her arrival in her host country as the first time she had ever been away from home, an experience that pushed her to make “connections,” something she continues to do today. “AFS gave me awareness about how big the world is,” she explains, in terms of the exchange process, “If you are open to it, changes are permanent…. we can create long lasting links all over and transform not only our thoughts but relations” This is certainly true of Wanny’s experience – she remains in contact with her host family to this day.
Later Wanny would return home to work as a hosting coordinator for AFS Honduras while simultaneously launching her singing career. In her 10 years of service, Wanny was able to connect with participants, host families, and host schools, spreading her message of unification and global connectivity throughout the AFS community. In her marriage to a director of a development organization, she has had the privilege of living and performing in many countries across the world including Zimbabwe — “we were permanently exchanging information and styles” Colombia – “People responded not only to the music, but to the message behind it” and India –“[culling from] a rich tradition of music and art”. Some might expect that performing for an international audience might be rife with complications, for starters; how to overcome the language barrier, but Wanny has a no-fail solution for a unified audience – “I value diversity. I’m different then the audiences looking at me, [I] make sure they realize we’re united and we connect, it’s them and us on stage and everything else around us.” Part of Wanny’s mystic wisdom is recognizing material culture as a means of achieving greater, harmonious interaction between people of various backgrounds, “Art has been one of those instruments that have helped me to connect to more people from different social backgrounds”. She speaks of her exceptional formative education demonstrating that “Everything is related. Performing music helps me to reach different social sectors in order to promote global tolerance and understanding.”
Wanny remains in tune with the universality of a truthful message and always aspires for “An honest delivery and an honest message and concern for the collective – give to people without pretensions and people value it more.” Her delivery of encompassing performances has resonated within the Indian Press, which has described Wanny’s “husky Spanish numbers” as “enthralling”, “soulful” and “penetrating”.
Good reviews are a bonus, but transformation is what Wanny is concentrated on. In the universality of the musical experience, Wanny recognizes a journey that allows us “a moment out of tough situations and travel with [the] mind and with their heart. You can be anywhere in the world.” So what is it to be a world traveler, both of the body and through performance? Wanny sums it up in one word – “Magic”.
Wanny is part of the extensive “Find An AFSer” network.
To find out more about Wanny, please visit her MySpace page by clicking here.
Do you know an AFSer who has taken their AFS experience and done something fascinating and inspiring? Send us an email and you might see that person profiled in a future Find An AFSer Newsletter!
hi Wanny~~ how was your performance? hope you enjoyed!! Things are good in Lahore. Please do send me all the photos we took! Please say big hi to Roland, Eliza, Sundeep, Mohit for me!!! love, Pei
How are you? Thanks for the comment, I appreciate it. I would like to let you know that my debut album "AMAZING" has been released in stores. The album is only available through Walmart and Itunes. You can also order it online through Walmart.com
Please show your support. It'll mean so much to me. If you are not following me on Twitter, please do so at Twitter.com/AYmusic . Thank You for everything. I hope all is well, take care. = )
Thanks so much for the Add–and your friendship. We enjoyed your music very much. Thanks for sharing it with all of us. It's a pleasure having you among our friends!
We've just added two new blogs about Umano, plus four more new compositions, making ten on our space. We hope you and your friends visit us and enjoy our music, too.
We wake up every morning and play the music of the new MySpace friends who have arrived at our site during the night. It occurred to us that these friends (you are among them) are almost universally positive, whether they be novices or legends, and without regard to their station in life or the country they occupy.
Although it's not an original thought, it also occurred to us that we couldn’t hold a verbal conversation with most of these friends, but we have bridged that gap by expressing our art honestly with each other.
We all have been filling the world with our music and art, in the hope that our messages of love and human understanding will have an impact on the world at large.
What a gift and what an opportunity we have received from this technology!
You have surely heard about the tragic death of a brave young woman who was murdered in Iran just for peacefully protesting with her father on the streets of Teheran.
Waaaannnnnyyyy!!! tengo myspace un poco abandonado....como estarás??seguro con mil proyectos!!mi hermano está en India en una boda en Hyderabad,inevitable acordarme de tí!
thanks wanny :) i'm doing fine... ma is recovering well, she is with me...will leave for lucknow 2nd week of july after her comprehensive check up.... i'm currently doing some corporate workshops...pls see pics on my artindus fb page... how's you and family.... pls tell elisa that she still owes me an easter egg ;)... hope to see you guys soon... have fun in china...and get me some chimes, if that's possible... big hugs
Howdy ... a big Texas welcome! Thank you for your friendship.
"Human existence spread its ancestral creed of philosophies significant to the primordial core’s radical metamorphosis of evolutionary dogma dictating messianic desiderata that captains Anthropoids’ ills of freewill which has forsaken fellow beings to an age of uncertainty, and to the insecure whims of an Illuminati’s gothic doctrine of mythical smoke and fables."