Climatic Dances (Museum version)

Endangered Human Movements Vol. 5

Performance

Climatic Dances is the name of the fifth volume of the Endangered Human Movements* , a long-term research carried out by choreographer Amanda Piña on the current loss of planetary cultural and biological diversity.

The first Museum version of the piece  was presented in the Msueo Universitario del Chopo, UNAM in Mexico City and was created with the support of a FONCA scholarship.  Inspired by the work of Mexican anthropologist Alessandro Questa, on two dances from the Northern Highlands of Puebla performed by indigenous Masewal people,  in a context of climate change and mining exploitation. These two dances “Tipekajomeh” and “Wewentiyo” constitute the beginning of a trip towards the depths of the mountain and towards the re enchantment of that which modern science called Geology.

The Piece includes three works in different format:

A film titled Danza Climáticas, featuring an interview with Alessandro Questa on the decolonial reading of the two dances mentioned above.

A re-ennaction of  Tipekajomeh, danced by the students  and , presented live at the underground gallery of the museum.

An installation on the stage of the theatre of the museum featuring a cylinder 360 video projection which quotes the original “scenography” used in the dance Wewentiyo, re-enacted by the students while  the audience sits on stage.

“These so-called ‘traditional’ dances stand in fact as creative social devices to visualize and intervene into socio-environmental relations, stressing the interdependence between all life forms in this mountainous region.”

Alessandro Questa

* Endangered Human Movements is the title of a long-term project, started in the year 2014, focusing on human movement practices which have been cultivated for centuries all over the world. Inside this frame a series of performances, workshops, installations, publications and a comprehensive online archive are developed which reconstruct, re-contextualise and re signify human movement practices in danger of disappearing, aiming at unleashing their future potential.