Mexico City., The dance piece Sounds Brought by the Sea is an invitation to reflect on the importance of the Afro-descendant cultures that inhabit not only the states of Guerrero and Oaxaca, but also a large part of the country. The piece will be presented at the National Center for the Arts (Cenart) this weekend.
In an interview with La Jornada, Abraham Santiago Bustos, co-director and member of the company, spoke about the importance of knowing, remembering and revaluing the role of Afro-descendant inhabitants in today’s society, at a historical and current level.
“This is our first large-scale stage project. Individually, these pieces have been very successful and we spent six years creating them. We started the company in 2018, with my partner Azhuraby Sánchez, when we were studying at the Mexican Dance Academy of the National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature, with the idea of recovering the diverse traditions of the different black communities,” said Santiago Bustos.
Composed of 14 choreographies and performed by 20 dancers, the production fuses genres of Afro music, from the arrival of the first slaves, through to the traditional rhythms that developed in Mexico, and new styles of music.
“We want to highlight the influence of Afro-descendants and their traditions, so we take their spiritual roots, such as their dances, and we combine them to experiment with them. We fuse the rhythms with ballroom dancing and contemporary songs so that the public learns about the current state of this music,” said Santiago Bustos.
One of the genres that stands out is that of the chilenas, a dance that dates back to the beginning of the 19th century in Guerrero and Oaxaca, and that originated from the Chilean style called “cueca”, which arrived in Mexico with the squad of General Bernardo O’Higgins in 1822, during the independence struggles.
“Racism and exclusion are still very much alive in Mexico. Although many of these acts are committed intentionally, there are others that are subject to a lot of misinformation. There are those who continue to see it as something from the colonial period, that blacks were just a group of people who came to work and that was it, but today there are several communities in the country that are active and that seek to transmit what their roots are.
“We want to make it visible that there is a modern-day black Mexico, that we are a culture that is part of the present and that we are the center of much influence in the present.
We want to contribute more to the public’s knowledge about our identity and show that we are living peoples,” said Abraham Santiago.
The work begins with the piece Ebony Cargo, which narrates the arrival of shipments of African slaves, and continues with No Slave, No Chains, Black Flowers, When My Rhythm Sounds, The Cost of the Sentence Doesn’t Matter, Ancestral Wisdom, Mestizo Son, Afrojarocho Danzón, and The Hen.
There is also Afrobamba, a dance mix of rock with Afro-contemporary dance based on the emblematic song La Bamba in a folk and rock version, and Con paso firme al andar…, with music by Iraida Noriega, which is a choreographic work that incorporates the step-dance style, a form of body percussion typical of African-American culture.
Cuban rhythms could not be missing, as is the case with the songs El yerberito and Burundanga, with versions by the legendary Celia Cruz, who together with Sonora Matancera put music to Remedio prohibido, which represents the rituals, herbal medicine and witchcraft that are part of the black heritage and fuses elements of chachachá, mambo, chilenas, and zapateado from southeastern Mexico.
The show Sounds Brought by the Sea will be presented this Saturday, September 7 and Sunday, September 8 at the Teatro de las Artes del Cenart, located on Av. Río Churubusco 79, Country Club Churubusco, Coyoacán. Tickets cost 150 pesos, with a 2×1 promotion if you buy on Wednesday at cenart.comprarboletos.com and on Friday at the box office.
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– 2024-09-08 17:56:41
