Photographs © Claudia Borgia
Climatic Dances
Endangered Human Movements Vol.5
Climatic Dances is the fifth volume of Amanda Piña’s long term project Endangered Human Movements, dedicated to dances and cultural practices that have already vanished or are threatened with extinction. The project consists of various research volumes, including performances, publications, curatorial frames, workshops, and lectures.
“I am looking for a dance that is not only dance but also a social movement,” says Amanda Piña, a Chilean-Mexican choreographer and performer who is fascinated by ancestral dance forms and the worldview from which they arise. In Climatic Dances, she links her growing concern about the plundering of natural resources with the traditional dances of the Masewal people in Mexico. Like the Masewal, Piña believes that all life is connected.
“In Climatic Dances, we show the revival of a dance of the Nahu – the Masewal from the Sierra Norte de Puebla. In the context of climate change, natural disasters and plundering by the global mining industry – ‘the Grim Reaper’s megaprojects’, as the native population in the Sierra calls them – some of the old dances are coming back. People realize that the obligation to dance and make sacrifices to the mountains has been neglected. The mountain is not merely geology for the Masewal, but a living being. It cannot be considered only matter. It is a being that gives water, that relates to the wind to create rain. So in this performance, the dances are the mountain or its spirit.” (Amanda Piña in Etcetera 2019)
CREDITS
Artistic direction, choreography
Amanda Piña
Choreography and transmission
Juan Carlos Palma
Research, theory
Alessandro Questa, Amanda Piña, Juan Carlos Palma
Video art, video installation
Amanda Piña
Art & stage design
Michel Jimenez
Performers (film)
Juan Carlos Palma, Alessandro Questa, Students of the National School of Folkloric Dance of Mexico (ENDF)
Live performance in Vienna
Amanda Piña, Juan Carlos Palma, Cristina Sandino
Live music
Christian Müller
Costumes (film)
Danza de Tejoneros y de Negritos, Privatsammlung Alessandro Questa, Axel Giovanni Castañeda Morales and Ariana Castellanos
Light
Victor Duran
Production
nadaproductions.at
Co-production
nadaproductions
Museo Universitario el Chopo
Tanzquartier Wien
deSingel
Distribution
Something Great
“I am looking for a dance that is not only dance but also a social movement,” says Amanda Piña, a Chilean-Mexican choreographer and performer who is fascinated by ancestral dance forms and the worldview from which they arise. In Climatic Dances, she links her growing concern about the plundering of natural resources with the traditional dances of the Masewal people in Mexico. Like the Masewal, Piña believes that all life is connected.
“In Climatic Dances, we show the revival of a dance of the Nahu – the Masewal from the Sierra Norte de Puebla. In the context of climate change, natural disasters and plundering by the global mining industry – ‘the Grim Reaper’s megaprojects’, as the native population in the Sierra calls them – some of the old dances are coming back. People realize that the obligation to dance and make sacrifices to the mountains has been neglected. The mountain is not merely geology for the Masewal, but a living being. It cannot be considered only matter. It is a being that gives water, that relates to the wind to create rain. So in this performance, the dances are the mountain or its spirit.” (Amanda Piña in Etcetera 2019)
CREDITS
Artistic direction, choreography
Amanda Piña
Choreography and transmission
Juan Carlos Palma
Research, theory
Alessandro Questa, Amanda Piña, Juan Carlos Palma
Video art, video installation
Amanda Piña
Art & stage design
Michel Jimenez
Performers (film)
Juan Carlos Palma, Alessandro Questa, Students of the National School of Folkloric Dance of Mexico (ENDF)
Live performance in Vienna
Amanda Piña, Juan Carlos Palma, Cristina Sandino
Live music
Christian Müller
Costumes (film)
Danza de Tejoneros y de Negritos, Privatsammlung Alessandro Questa, Axel Giovanni Castañeda Morales and Ariana Castellanos
Light
Victor Duran
Production
nadaproductions.at
Co-production
nadaproductions
Museo Universitario el Chopo
Tanzquartier Wien
deSingel
Distribution
Something Great
Funded by FONCA, Municipal Department of Cultural Affairs and the BKA Austrian Federal Chancellery - Arts and Culture division
With the support by BKA, Mexican Embassy in Austria, The National School of Folkloric Dance of Mexico, DAS THIRD – Amsterdam University of the Arts, and Skanes Danstheater.