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Flashes between worlds and bodies:

From colonial historiography in Mesoamerica to an anti-colonial, speculative, and pluriversal applied historiology

Authors

  • María Regina Firmino-Castillo University of California-Riverside https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1446-6242
  • Daniel Fernando Guarcax González Centro Educativo Comunitario Maya Tijob’äl Tz’oloj ya’, Sololá.
  • TOHIL / Fidel Brito Bernal Universidad de San Carlos

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.58786/rbed.2022.v1.n1.52364

Keywords:

danza, performance, historiografía, historiología aplicada, colonialismo, decolonialismo, catástrofe, ontología, Mesoamérica Grupo Sotz’il, Estrellx Supernova, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Maya Kaqchikel, Maya Ixil.

Abstract

This collaboration between the three authors consists of a set of "flashes" (critical juxtapositions) that reveal insights about the "sui generistransmotions" that Gerald Vizenor defined as the inherent right of movement. Analysing the mechanisms and logics of corpo-ontological destruction in Mesoamerica, this essay names the distinct sociological relations between the three authors and how these relations shape their collaboration. Guarcax González narrates details of his sound/movement practice with Grupo Sotzil, while Brito Bernal interrogates the archaeological record of dance in Central Americato reflect on its purposes. Firmino-Castillo concludes by presenting diasporic movement projects that are animated by their persistent ontological relationalities. At the same time, these approaches critically address both the past and the present in order to speculate upon paths towards the future. Firmino-Castillo concludes by arguing that these approaches are historiographical, but also historiological in their possible anti-colonial applications

Author Biographies

María Regina Firmino-Castillo, University of California-Riverside

Soy investigadora y artista transdisciplinaria, y me dedico a la escritura y la docencia, entre otras cosas. Nací en Guatemala y pasé mis primeros años de vida migrando entre El Salvador, Nicaragua, y EE. UU., una experiencia que me provoca cuestionar fronteras y taxonomías de toda índole. Como investigadora, indago las dimensiones políticas y corporales de las ontologías a través de una transdisciplinariedad anticolonial que participa en un dialogo crítico con estudios de danza, performance, y la antropología cultural. Estoy preparando un manuscrito, tentativamente titulado Corporalidades y Catástrofe, en la cual exploro cómo los cuerpos, y las ideologías que los definen, son sitios claves de las luchas ontológicas que se han perpetuado a lo largo de la colonialidad en las Américas, con un enfoque que abarca Mesoamérica y sus diásporas como área geográfica que desafía fronteras nacionales impuestas por una geopolítica neocolonial. El libro se basa en un análisis de los nexos entre la destrucción y la violencia corporal y ecocida en el contexto de la guerra genocida que se llevó a cabo en Guatemala contra el pueblo ixil en la década de los 1980. A la vez relato cómo, 30 años después, sobrevivientes de esta guerra emplean prácticas corporales en el espacio/tiempo—como la ritualidad, la danza, y la construcción de monumentos—para enfrentar esta violencia y sus secuelas. El libro busca ampliar este análisis con una mira transfronteriza y transtemporal hacia historias y experiencias distintas pero entrelazadas. Con ese fin, Corporalidades y Catástrofe sigue una lógica nómada, trazando los caminos rizomáticos que conllevan a co-teorizaciones sobre la corporalidad y las luchas ontológicas en las Américas con artistas y pensadores como Daniel Guarcax, danzante/musico Kaqchikel; Lukas Avendaño, artista de performance y antropólogo Zapoteco; Tohil Fidel Brito, artista ixil; entre otrxs. En mi labor como profesora asistente de estudios críticos de danza, imparto seminarios de posgrado y cursos de licenciatura con un enfoque anticolonial y transdisciplinario que a menudo combinan investigación y escritura con epistemologías corporales experimentales.

Daniel Fernando Guarcax González, Centro Educativo Comunitario Maya Tijob’äl Tz’oloj ya’, Sololá.

Maestro de Educación Primaria Bilingüe Intercultural
(kaqchikel y español) y cierre de pensum de Licenciatura en Trabajo Social. Es miembro fundador de Grupo Sotz'il, colectivo de movimiento/sonido ubicado en Sololá, Guatemala.

TOHIL / Fidel Brito Bernal, Universidad de San Carlos

I am an Ixil Maya artist from Naab’a’ (Nebaj), El Quiché (Tu Tx’ich), Iximulew (Guatemala). I studied archaeology at the University of San Carlos de Guatemala and visual art in Guatemala, México, and Cuba. My artistic practice centers on the understanding of Maya art in all its diversity and dimensions in order to connect, personally, with the knowledge of my ancestors, and share it with others. My art is a political act, in that it represents a stubborn insistence on existence — despite centuries of colonialism, war, genocide, and post-war violence and poverty. Through the art I make, I understand my history; more importantly, my art nourishes the present and contributes, however modestly, to the future – my own, that of my people, and others sharing this planet.

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Published

2022-07-15 — Updated on 2023-11-30

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How to Cite

FIRMINO-CASTILLO, María Regina; GONZÁLEZ, Daniel Fernando Guarcax; BRITO BERNAL, TOHIL / Fidel. Flashes between worlds and bodies:: From colonial historiography in Mesoamerica to an anti-colonial, speculative, and pluriversal applied historiology. Brazilian Journal of Dance Research, [S. l.], v. 1, n. 1, p. 318–352, 2023. DOI: 10.58786/rbed.2022.v1.n1.52364. Disponível em: https://revistas.ufrj.br/index.php/rbed/article/view/52364. Acesso em: 21 nov. 2024.

Issue

Vol. 1 No. 1 (2022): Outras Danças, Muitas Histórias

Section

Ensaios

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