This week at music is her passion society e.V, we continue to present empowered womxn and projects that are part of the behind-scenes of the global music industry. For this article, we spoke to Ana Poluyan, Manager of the Argentinian bands LOS PERICOS, and MIRANDA!, and Vice President of ACMMA (Civil Association of Argentine Music Managers). Ana Poluyan is one of the figureheads of empowering womxn in the Argentine music scene - and a woman who has been holding high the flag of equality since her very career beginnings.
In recent years, the history of womxn in the Argentine music industry has mainly been laying focus on making visible what had been hidden for decades, giving an opportunity for long-unheard voices to speak up. For a long time, many big players ignored that fact an individual's sex and gender identity could mean a NO for an answer in the professional environment. Thousands of unnecessary gender-related obstacles before actual evaluation of one's factual qualification and skill were largely dismissed. Inequal opportunities and treatment within the music industry were naturalized and accepted for a long period by the large majority of those in charge. Today, the Argentine music landscape makes for an extraordinary space: its music ecosystem has a great team of powerful womxn leading complex workspaces behind the artists, representing them through strategic areas such as managers, producers, media, record labels, and many more. Among them is Ana Poluyan, who since the early 2000s has dedicated herself to building her own career within the Argentine music industry - perhaps without knowing that at the same time she was building a path for womxn within the industry of her country, which today, positions her as an empowered reference for her colleagues. As Ana Poluyan tells us, in the Argentine music industry there is more equality behind the stage than on it, there is still a long way to go before true equality is reached in the overall industry. But womxn like her are here to stay and strive to make this happen.
"When I started with Los Pericos I only had previous experience working in show production, the role of the manager I had to learn on the court and with the "punches". "
Since 2004, Ana has been working as the manager of LOS PERICOS, one of the biggest bands in the Latin American music scene. When she started working with them, however, she only had previous experience working in show production. From one day to the other, she had to give her all and learn to be a manager. She had to grow into a role that builds, executes, and administers from the first day on, putting out all sorts of fires and always having to find a solution. In her true nature, she gave everything she got to meet the objectives and guide her band and has not slipped up since. For seventeen years now, she manages a band that she took to play in the most important festivals in Latin America, and even in the 2018 World Cup in Russia. It is a band that never stops playing, with whom she made historic albums, a band that always stayed on top, and never stopped being successful - and most importantly a work environment where there are equal rights, respect, and above all, where they have a good time.
" It's up to each of us to work for equality."
Ana defines equal rights as equal retribution for equal responsibilities in all areas of life: at home, at work, in the street. And although she considers that artists have a very important space where they can contribute publicly to good causes, she believes that everyone - public person or not - must contribute to equality with their own actions and morals.
In the last few years, especially in the Argentine music industry, gender awareness has become increasingly visible. Today, it has a voice, gender deconstruction is having an impact as new generations come from the hand of this deconstruction, from the support among colleagues, from the changes, from not silencing anything anymore. As Ana tells us:
"Consciousness is a snowball that is growing minute by minute, the snow is coming down the slope and making a lot of noise ... it will arrive very soon!"
"The association of managers has a very interesting and fluid contact between the parts."
Beyond her work managing prestigious bands, Ana is constantly building within the industry. She was the founder and first president of the Argentine Association of Managers (ACMMA), a group created among colleagues with the aim of valuing the National music industry, matching it with different cultural activities and training provided by industry colleagues. Today, she serves as Vice President, being in charge of the relationship with the Government, a role that currently represents a very important power due to the emergency in which the Music Industry is in the country because of the pandemic. Currently, ACMMA is pleading the urgent need for new cultural policies to save live music.
Ana mentions that when making decisions, she relies heavily on her partner Guille Gonzalez, with whom she works in her management agency. She also highlights that above all, the support and human benefit of working in an equal space within ACMMA contribute greatly to her being able to become her best professional self: "the association of managers has a very interesting and fluid contact between the parties, for me working with colleagues on the board is very enriching and I always ask them for advice" she said.
Inclusion is a basic condition for a fairer society and music industry. Naturally, the lack thereof in some parts of the music industry does not go unnoticed within the ACMMA. One of Ana's empowering colleagues, Tori Carrera, manager of the Argentine band Massacre, is currently in charge of working on a new gender policy within the Argentine Music Industry to create more inclusive spaces for all. She is"a great friend and a woman of unique drive," says Ana.
"My favorite part of my work is human relations."
Ana loves her work, the human relationships, being constantly interacting with people, living with artists, colleagues, situations that enrich her mind. However, the personal costs are very high in a position as important as Ana's: leaving her children when she goes on tour, not being able to be present in certain situations, miscalibrating her balance. However, her empowering attributes perfectly complement her facing the challenge of finding her balance between all of her life's puzzle pieces. Ana Poluyan is an empowered woman above all: celebrating great success in both her work and private life, and striving to empower and uplift more womxn to follow in her footsteps.
"Work and perseverance, we do not condition ourselves, we have the same tools!".
music is her passion is the magazine of music is her passion society e.V. The Berlin-based music is her passion society e.V. is a non-profit association supported by membership fees, subsidies, and donations. All the content you can see here is the result of the purely voluntary and passionate commitment of all members to equality empowerment in music.
