K’uinchekua show brings together 380 indigenous artists from Michoacán

Tzintzuntzan, Mich. More than 380 artists from the different indigenous regions of Michoacán participated in the light, music, dance and color show of the K’uinchekua, held this Thursday night on the Yácatas plain – pyramids of superimposed slabs – of which centuries ago the capital of the Purépecha kingdom.

It was the beginning of the third edition of this festival in which three thousand special guests were the native peoples, mainly relatives of the children, young people, women and men who participated in this cultural and historical exhibition – not professional – but with an ancestral tradition. that revives and recreates different aspects of what has been their daily life.

Three more performances will take place from March 15 to 17, once tickets were distributed free of charge online to applicants throughout the country, especially in tourist publications.

A brief video mapping was presented about the cosmological vision of the creation of the Purépecha people, to reach Tzintzuntzan (land of hummingbirds), moments later an exhibition of the ball game was presented, where two teams competed for the ball of fire.

Continuously, only with the guidance of a voice in off the carnival bull dances of the Jarácuaro community appeared; the elegant old men of Santa Fe de la Laguna; The small dancers from Sicuicho, accompanied by live music from the different communities, mostly Purépecha, although there were also presentations by Nahua, Mazahua, Otomi and Pirinda artists with the Tlahualiles of Sahuayo.

Images of monarch butterflies and the Paricutin volcano were projected in the background of the stage, and fireworks were launched that illuminated the dark sky of this indigenous town located on the shores of Lake Pátzcuaro, which is also illuminated every Night of the Dead with candles that The pantheon is concentrated and is visited by thousands of people.

traditional cooks

At mealtime, in front of the Franciscan convent, built a little less than 500 years ago and where Vasco de Quiroga was once in charge, on the street of the Tzintzunztan town hall that leads to the Yácatas, traditional cooks were installed. They offered dishes such as charales, uchepos, corundas, mole, gorditas, churipo, among other delicacies.

Later, in the olive tree atrium of the Franciscan convent, teachers and students from the Hihuatzio music school, located on the shore of Lake Pátzcuaro, offered a traditional music concert. Then the parade of participating artists of the K’uinchekua on the main avenue.

Then came the party in Yácatas, when it had barely gotten dark, the Dance of the Moors of the community of Zacán, the dances of the Apatzingán Valley, the dance of the White Fish and the dance of Los Viejitos de Jarácuaro continued. There was no shortage of dancing horses or representative songs of this entity such as Juan Colorado and Caminos de Michoacán.