Episode 2.7
Interview with Manuel Estrella, by Stephanie García on Jan. 17th, 2021
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Stephanie (S): Manuel Estrella is an interdisciplinary artist. He earned his Bachelors of Musical Arts from the Escuela Superior de Artes de Yucatán. His interest is in the investigation of sound and the body in performance. His sound and stage work has been presented in the United States, Spain, Brazil, Colombia, Uruguay, Chile, Sweden, and Germany as well as in numerous forums and festivals in the Republic of Mexico. He has made musical pieces and sound designs for national and international choreographers and performing arts directors such as: Raquel Araujo, Jorge Vargas, Lourdes Luna, Tamara Cubas, Eun Jung Choi, Jaciel Neri, Shanti Vera, Jaime Camarena, Roberto Olivan, Francisco Cordova, Aladino Blanca and Viko Hernandez. He has been beneficiary of the Promotion for Culture and the Arts State Fund of Yucatán (FOECAY) “Young Creators” 2007, Program to Stimulate the Creation and Development of the Arts (PECDA) “Young Creators” 2014, and of the National Fund for Culture and the Arts (FONCA) “Young Creators” 2017-2018. He has twice been the winner of the Premio Nacional de Danza Guillermo Arriaga in the 2014 and 2015 editions for best original music in the choreographies “Habitante” and “El reparto de lo sensible” directed by Shanti Vera.
S: Thank you for responding to the express invitation we sent to you!
Manuel (M): Well, thank you very much for inviting me. For always inviting me to your projects of this type and well, with pleasure!
S: By this time I will have already added a small biography of you. But we would like to know, who is Manuel Estrella, in his own words?
M: Huuuy! It is complex, it is, it is very philosophical! Mmm, well look, uh, it’s kind of hard to define yourself, right? But I suppose there is always a way of how we perceive ourselves and I am going to try to respond from things, especially those that matter to me, right? So, well, mainly eeeh, I am passionate about my work, so I consider that I am my work, right? I am what I do. About all the projects that I do, personally; there I can identify very well with, there is the essence of what at least interests me enough to show, right? Eh, I’m a person who, I really like cats, right? And I like to be eeeh, well eeeh, submerged, right? Immersed as in myself and from there, asking myself several questions and mainly I answer them on an artistic level, right? On the other hand, also eeeh, I think I am a person who, I like to be calm and that I really enjoy the things that do not have, eh, much use, right? Maybe that’s why I identify a lot with artists and with cats.
S: Right. Eh, Manuel, are you from Mérida?
M: Yes, I am from Merida. Eh, my mother is from a town called Halachó -which is … well, now it is about 40 minutes from Mérida. Several years ago suppose it was longer, but now it is about 40-45 minutes from Merida. And my dad is from here, from Mérida. In fact, I have a last name in Maya which is my mother’s and which is Chi. And my paternal last name is not really my grandfather’s last name, my grandfather’s last name is a last name in Maya but…. eh, well, I suppose everywhere, but here the discrimination against Indigenous people was very strong. It is still very strong, but -obviously- before, a few years ago it was much more evident, right? Now it is a bit disguised, but before the discrimination was very evident. So, so that my father would not suffer from that discrimination because they “borrowed the last name” from someone, right? From some other distant relative. And they called my dad: Estrella. But originally it should have been called, surname Dzib. The first three children were Estrella and then, eh, all the others were Dzib.
S: Wow! Wow!
M: That’s right. Then it was my turn for Estrella. And well, that’s a bit of the story. And my grandmother spoke Mayan, right? And Mayan was never taught to my mother or her other children because, well, they didn’t want to be discriminated against. And yeah, I’m from Mérida, and well, I never learned Mayan either.
S: It’s a shame because, well, that’s how languages get lost. not? Yes, the issue of discrimination, we will talk a little about that, a little later. Could you tell us what you do and why you do it?
M: Yes. Well, I consider that almost nobody knows me, I think that few people know me and that it seems to me that it is fine. I like to have that low profile. Hey, what I do is, I do stage work. For a long time I did original music and sound design work for theater and dance companies. Then I became more and more specialized in dance and at the same time began to develop interdisciplinary projects that mainly involved sound and the body. And then, what I do now mainly -especially in my personal projects- are this type of work that is hybrid work where well, eh, I expose my interests that have to do mainly with the body, sound and interfaces; and I have put aside my work of sound design and original music a little bit. But then there are still some projects that continue to interest me to collaborate from that place.
S: And you do, you also do the sound design of your pieces. Right?
M: Yes, I do the sound design. I do the work of a performer. I direct, eh, I get into debt, I do, ha, ha, I do, well, the production. All of that.
S: Yes, yes, that, I really like that. Let’s see, tell us a little about how you came to the art world. In other words, at what moment did music interest you, why did it catch your attention and, and if there was any moment, you know?; as well as, key moment, that you said, “Oh look, this can be a career path.”
M: Yes, well… well, from, as a child, eh, my parents as they were class, eh, lower class, which began to be a rising to the middle class. Well, one of the things they tried is how to give us certain tools that they might have liked to have. And among those were piano lessons. So, uh, as a kid I took piano lessons for a couple of years, not in a very formal way, right? Actually everything was like, like very relaxed and but, let’s say that is one of the antecedents that I had with music at the same time that my parents, well, they listened to a lot of music, right? And, well, they instilled in me and my brothers that love of music, right? Mainly to music. And I was like in adolescence when – I don’t know, between 16-17 years old – when I think you start to ask yourself certain things in life. Eh, it was that something happened there, like a rupture I felt right at that moment -I don’t know-, a window towards a certain sensitivity, and I looked out, and I -in a certain way-, I began to soak up a lot of music, right? Of a certain type of music and well, I couldn’t get out any more. That is, I really liked that feeling and wanted to investigate and start studying. And so, well, I had a little background of playing the piano and at that age, I started to do small compositions. That is, I hoped that everyone in my house would leave, there was a piano and I would put myself there to make it, to make music. In the beginning – especially – I was very interested in popular music, which is close to rock. Later, eh, well I began to study a little more in a more traditional way with classical repertoire. And so, uh, well, I got ready to go to music school. And then, well, I already entered and began to study composition because it was what I liked the most. But well, I already was older when I began. In other words, since I can remember, I have always been older to do things, but well, I think it is good because that experience of age also gives you many things and clarifies the paths. So, I started with the idea of making music on computers and I was fortunate to be in a school where the director at that time was someone very, very well known in electroacoustic music. I didn’t even know, right? In other words, like many things, I also do them from my ignorance, because I entered, eeeh, wanting that and it happened. I started making music on computers and at one point my school was pretty good. After what usually happens, there is a change of government and everything else is changed. So what happens, the school is given another focus and then I didn’t like it anymore. In that ‘I no longer like it’, because I started to get into the performing arts and to get more, more, more, more; And to the degree that I started doing a lot of workshops on, this one, mainly postmodern techniques and dance improvisation techniques, right? And that’s it. Well, I liked it a lot and here I am.
S: It caught you. The performing arts got you.
M: I was caught by the performing arts. Got me, yeah
S: But not from onstage, but also from the onstage.
M: Yes above all … and, there is, there is a, there are things that it cannot give you… nothing more. In other words, when you do something and they give you, like this knowledge; You realize that you can only get it by experiencing it, right? Otherwise. Like when I got into music, and nothing in the world can give me what music gives me. The same happened with dance, movement, and the performing arts, right? Being there, I realized that there is a knowledge that is not elsewhere. I wish there was more money than knowledge, but for now there is only more knowledge, right?
S: Yes, yes, yes, I understand you. The pragmatic part of the economy is, it is a very complex issue, it has always been difficult, it has always been difficult to make a living from art but today…
M: I don’t know about other countries but my experience in Mexico of being like, touching in different, eh, currents of art; I realize that the performing arts are seriously abused.
S: Yes. It is nice here in the United States, this roll, this difference of, of two cultures or of two countries like Mexico and the United States where in Mexico, art is subsidized and there is government money to support projects and productions. In the United States, no. If there is a, a little like – I don’t remember what the figure is – but, it’s like a little council, secretary. But it really has very, very limited funds that are like for organizations that are eh, non-profit and are more eh, accustomed to the scheme of donations and you, that you need to sell tickets because if there is no income from that economic flow there is no way to keep the organization running, right? And yet both ways are very difficult and they are, aaah, they have too many, how to say, obstacles, you know? I think that these types of mechanisms are the ones that we lack in Mexico.
M: Sure. But even to enter these mechanisms, uh, scholarships and other subsidies are complex there is also a lot of work involved. And also many, much effort that does not correspond to that of, or should not correspond to that of art, right? So in the same way that it is to sell a function for a general public, right? In other words, selling a project to a, uh, government representative or to a jury is the same, quite gruesome, it seems to me.
S: Yes. I fully understand what you are saying and I agree, I agree. This question is also difficult, but what is art to you?
M: Oh well, you always ask me very complex, very difficult questions, right? Eeh, well, for me it is something, eh, that is close to a game, right? For me it is, it is, a kind of game that you show the world, right? And that you invite like, well, people, to participate in that game, right? And I call it a game because it seems to me that games correspond to their own logic, right? So, I’m just interested in a concept that is mobile, right? That is why I am interested in what has been called art in many eras. I like, uh, artwork from almost all eras, right? At least the ones I’m getting to know. There are things that interest me a lot and that I just see them, right? from, from a logic that, well yes, with the references that I have or that teach us what art is; But the ones that interest me the most are where I simply appreciate them and, and games are not just for fun, they serve many things, right?, to learn, to, I don’t know, to eh, to distract you, to enjoy, to contemplate. I don’t know, they are for many things. And then, within how very difficult it is, which is to define it at least, what I do if I am interested in defining it as, like that, like a game, right? Like an experience. So that’s what interests me about what I defend as art. And above all it corresponds to a space that you experience, well, that, another reality and that then you discover that there are other ways of seeing something. And I don’t mean by that, that art is made to teach things, right? I don’t think I even have to teach anything, because it seems to me that the experiences of art are very personal. And that’s why also the type of art that I really like is art that is abstract, and art that is open, and that, er, well, it stimulates me to find what I have to find in that experience.
S: Aha, aha, at what point did you jump from, from within the performing arts, this need to be the one who wrote that stage speech? Eh, and without having to define it with a specific word but for you, what kind of themes, or environments, or what do you like to put on the stage?
M: Yes, this, well, eh, when I started in music, I started because I wanted to make music, right? And when I started dance training, as a child and adolescent I liked to exercise a lot, in fact one of the main reasons why I started taking dance, fitness and body awareness classes; It was because, uh, when I started studying music I started to get very chubby…
S: Ha ha ha.
M: …and it was my way of exercising, right? And because in my logic -ah, innocent-, it was, “I want to exercise, but something closer to art.” And then I discovered dance, right? And I started to get involved with the sound part first. But as I exercised and began to regain my condition – and um, I am interested in creativity, right? – then eeeh, well, I began to experiment, to do, especially improvisational exercises. I was going with a friend who I started with, -which I met in my first dance class-, we went to parks and we improvised, but above all it was a game. Improvising as we understood and above all it was very pleasant, right? In other words, the things that drive me to create is the feeling of pleasure. I mean, how rich it feels to express yourself that way, right? At least those were the first impulses. And then already, the first time, eeeh, let’s say on a professional level, -if professional is a word-. Professional is a funny word, but what I meant is that at a level of “we are going to do it in a certain way within the context of a work to present,” right ?, with the public and with all that. It’s funny that I say that is professional because surely that is not professional, but well, rather, that was what I meant. It was in 2010 in a job that, that, to which I was invited to do the music, eh, Diana Bayardo and Gervasio Cetto, eh, with Tamara Cubas. So Tamara put me in, let’s say, to do physical interventions there, and from that we started; we come together, we form a group called Mákina de Turing. And at that moment -in the first jobs we did with Tamara-, well I began to develop more my interest in doing scenic things. The first jobs we did at Mákina, well, they were, uh, when we didn’t work with directors or choreographers, it was collective direction work; And then I began to propose certain dynamics and certain premises, certain ideas that I was interested in carrying out. And let’s say those were the first jobs I saw being done. And then I started later, well, now my personal project to go much deeper into the topics that interested me. That was in 2014, when I did my first stage-sound work. And already, from there I began to do only personal projects, at least the staged ones.
S: Aha.
M: Oh, and how would you define my work?
S: Aha.
M: That is not so difficult because that is something that I do try to answer constantly. It’s a job that for me is, uh, visceral, right? I am interested in works that are visceral, that are, uh, that have instinct as the first motivator of creation, right? And they are works that, uh, are a question, right? They are posed as a question that interests me, which is generally an abstract question with abstract answers. But generally they are works that are, that are open. And within that, that this thing involves a bit of ritual, I would say, right? Of the states of the body and sound.
S: I love it, I really like what you say. Actually everything, but I really like how – I am going to say it on a personal level because I could not make a generalization – but about the ritual because, I do not know, I feel that the primordial essence of the work of the body has a lot do with the ritual. Now that you are talking to us about how you define your work, could you tell us, how did you get an idea, how do you materialize it?
M: Yes, well, uh, I’m going to talk mostly about the last works, the last two works that are, where I consider that I am already finding a way closer to what seems personal to me. The others, the first two, it’s not that I have many works, right? I mean, from 2014 to here I have 3 stage works, and now, uh, last year I made a video art. So especially the most recent work and video art that are close, right? they have a proximity in their interests. I worked with certain poetic images that resonated with me, right? I like to work with objects. From the first job I started working with objects. The first, especially for the interface part, the objects were more part of the interface. I mean, microphones, speakers, things, cameras, eh. And then I began to find a fascination for anachronistic objects, right? So the next work, I started, I made a large section with vinyl players, with music boxes and well there was an interest, in addition to the sound, about the object itself, right? The object that moves, the object that is, I live and that, eeeh, because it presents a different problem when it is next to a body. So the next work called All objects that move, it was a piece where I was interested in working with objects, objects that for me, eeeh, resonate with me. And it all arose from an idea that I liked, that came to me… I surely got it from somewhere, because then the processes of creation and imagination, it is very tricky to say that they are born spontaneously. I mean, they were born for some reason and I don’t know exactly how to explain it with certainty, but the idea was born that I wanted a table that would jump and I would do a moving duet with that table. So from that, eh, because I was interested in how that table, with that rigidity, could influence and could show me a way for me to move. So, from that point on, I began to do tests with other objects and I began to get deeper into the object itself, to give it more space for the movements of these objects to take place and for them to teach me the ways in which I can relate to them. Because one of the things that interest me in my work is communication, how do I communicate, or with the person there or with, uh, the bodies, which in this case are the objects, the bodies are the objects, ¿no?, then how can I relate to it based on physical movement and sound movement. Also when these objects move – or when they move – eh, they trigger sound, right? Either because they fall, or because they rub something. And they are mostly subtle, small movements that you have to get close to. And the sounds are also small, that we need a magnifying glass to look at them in a bigger way. I mean, it can be a microphone, a speaker, and then, uh, well, everything, uh, the whole process was actually based on the curiosity of ‘what would happen, trial and error, trial and error, and things that I started to like them. Another thing that happened in that work was that I also started to have a group of collaborators with whom I made a good team, right? I am also interested in their world. And I want to mention this because my work generally, uh, sometimes I also defend it as part of a movement of creators who come from the performing arts, but who come from the world known as design, right?: from sound design, lighting design, set design, artistic design, costume design. So, uh, I started working with Arturo Lugo and Jessica Elizondo. Arturo Lugo does the art design part and Jessica Elizondo does the lighting design part. So the jobs are very loaded with this thought of ‘we are going to take the hierarchy out of the body,’ that at least in dance it is always present, right? Of the human body, that the human body is the main thing and it is what has to be shown as the main thing. In my work I am interested in bodies. I am interested in bodies having, showing that sensitivity that I see. How does the viewer perceive it? Well, no, I don’t know, maybe I don’t know, but at least from my perspective – I’m the first viewer – because if I want you to take the necessary care to show the journey of color, textures, everything that body includes or all the bodies that are present there. So the processes are very intuitive. The narratives that are being built – because there are abstract narratives – have more to do with, er, flow logics. I am interested in how rhythm influences space, so I am very interested in working with that perception of time from flows. That is why I like my work to be apparently absurd or illogical to certain eyes, but, eeeh, I care more that it has a flow with a logic that interests me because I am also building it from, eh, as if it were a sound piece that for me may have a certain logic, right? Well, in the same way, eeeh, I go out and observe from outside, and I see how all the flows of sound, of the body, of the colors are happening, and then I am finding the logic that I like to show. That.
S: When we saw you again in Mexico City, the time you presented this latest piece, uh, did you also create the objects or did you have them made?
M: Yes. I do almost everything because part of what interests me about being an artist is that I am curious to learn, right? That is why I spoke at first of playing. I’m curious to be there and I like to be part of that learning. So there are things that if I get out of the knowledge -well almost everything-, generally I try to learn it but there are things that I consider that I do not want to, or I cannot, I ask someone for help, right? Like tables, I mean, I don’t know, nor am I interested in making an aluminum table. But the objects as such, eeeh, the very simple mechanisms, eh, inventing as I can and later, eh, especially with ‘El Chino’- Arturo Lugo, we are going to see what materials they can be and now. But they are very simple objects with very simple mechanisms. Because also, one of the things that I am clear about is that technology is not the sensitive part of my work, but rather that the object and the action of the object, and the other things are the sensitive part of my work. When technology begins to be the sensitive part of my work, I no longer care and I start to find other ways to solve it. And still, well, I get a lot of help from technology, old, by the way, third world technology.
S: What do you do when you run into creative barriers?
M: Well, appeal to experience, right? I mean, ‘el comillo’ does help a lot. There are mostly projects that, that is, I think that time will never ever be enough, we will always need more time for creative processes, but there are, there are processes that are for the day before, right? So, uh, especially those processes I use, well yes, the experience of knowing what can work, and we are testing, and we are seeing. Also when it comes to the arts, composing music, eeeh, most of the projects have a very clear line. So far I have not worked with – at least not most projects – that want to get out of that line. So since there is already a reference, eh, mainly they ask me for things that contribute with certain aesthetics that they are looking for, right? So that’s another reason why I don’t make so much music anymore. Now with the projects that I make music, eh, that also get involved like this game of “we are going to find other possibilities with sound” because they are the least. And these give me the freedom so that, uh, the things that I propose happen. And then in the moments that I’ve had like, uh, creatives blocks, just silence, right? Let’s hear what else can happen within that silence. And in that doing nothing, then certain things appear. Because sound is everywhere. I mean, if I can’t give an answer, certain things appear on the stage itself, right? So that’s why I’m not worried about not knowing how to solve it from the sound because a stage work, eh, is always playing, even if there is no sound. And in my personal processes, which are the ones that scare me the most when blocked, eh, now yes that, eh, I’m not afraid of repeating myself, right? In fact, I think many times I feel that I am always doing the same work, but when I see it I realize that it is not changing. Maybe because the questions continue to resonate the same, I feel that they do, so I’m not afraid to repeat myself. I also think that my work lends itself to that, my work is closely linked to improvisation. So it lends itself a lot so that in this thing of being alive, several things happen, right? And well, I am interested in feeling that I am unprotected by not having all the answers. Definitely because I hold on to the things that I know work. But being in the present, you have to make decisions that sometimes are decisions that change, right? Although there are things that you know work if the piece asks for it, it is also worth changing the course, right?
S: What’s the worst that could happen? Right? He he.
M: Yes. It always happens to me that nothing works, hahahaha. The worst thing that can happen to me has already happened to me several times and even so the work continues. Yes, I have only stopped once.
S: Really?
M: Twice I have stopped the pieces, twice, yes. one was within two minutes of starting and how good it was. It was at a festival, at the Festival 4×4 that was in San Cristóbal in 2017. There was a scene where, eh, at first there are many lights connected and they are activated synchronized with the sound, right? They turn on or off. And when the first sound happened, uh, they didn’t turn on and I said, “No, something happened!” And there I stopped, and I apologized, and I said that we were going to start over. And it’s good that it happened because the public came in very seriously, right? I mean, sometimes like certain spaces or festivals, I don’t know, sometimes they become very solemn, right? And then this thing that happened and the communication of “Now, talk while here nothing happens”, as it made the atmosphere relax and I feel that that also helped, right? And now, it was fast, I checked it, I had made a mistake -which is basically why things did not work, heh, heh-, and I repaired it quickly and the performance took place, and it happened very well, it was a very good show, I liked that feature. But the other one, I stopped it 1 year ago -on the last tour I did-, which was to the southeast. Eh, it was a function in Tabasco, in a theater, in a forum that they gave us. That tour was very interesting because it was in the southeast (of Mexico) and you realize that there is no infrastructure for the performing arts. I mean, Mérida has it, Xalapa has it, but beyond that, it’s very tough. And I did a tour in something that was a, uh, a call for the regional part of the southeast -which is Yucatán, Campeche, Quintana Roo, Tabasco, Chiapas, and Veracruz-. And in Tabasco -in the forum that I performed-, that is, it was in the worst technical conditions and it happened that only one speaker sounded, of all the ones we had already tried. I don’t know what happened but one speaker only started to sound and I was already very tired of, like these technical things that no longer depend on the work of the artists, if not on, well, the Institution, right? And in the middle of the play, I cut, I apologized because it seems to me that the public did not deserve to see such a show either. And the people who saw it got out of hand because they liked what was happening, in fact I started doing other things with the speaker that was there. And well, actually it was able to continue the work and it could become something else and it would have been very good, but as they were already like, thing after thing after thing that, there as well as for dignity – let’s say it like this – that in that position, right? Because it is also very tiring to always have to lose to the Institution.
S: Yes, you always have to be like, the one who adapts, and the one who solves, and one who does; but the job is not done on the other side. If I understand.
M: Indeed, indeed.
S: Talking a bit and going back to… I have two questions, eeeh, how have you experienced discrimination issues? Eh, yes, in general, right? And I had never thought about it, but why haven’t you gone to live in Mexico City? Many emigrate to Mexico City and you don’t, you go, you come -because there are many projects that you develop in the city-, but you haven’t left Yucatan, why, why did you say “no, I’ll stay here”?
M: Well, because you live better here, because here there is quality of life, there is time, right? There is space, eeeh, there is tranquility in the streets. Mainly because of that. I just live here and work here. The projects that I present elsewhere because the institutions here are not interested in my work. It is not a problem, is it? At least it is not a problem for me because I can present it in other places, in other frameworks. But the part of living, eh, if it is very important to me that I have the conditions that at least I have here. If I go somewhere else to live, eh, I do want to have space and time because for me they are vital, right? For the type of work that I do, I do almost everything because I can do it, because I have the time to do it, because I have the energy to do it, right? So being in another situation, eh, I don’t know how it would turn out… It doesn’t scare me either because one always adapts to everything but for now, eeeh, I like living here. On the other hand, eeeh, well here is my family and it seems to me that it is a part that interests me, eh, to have (them) around. So there is something like love towards what I want: my cats, my parents, my brothers; that I also like to have them present. One the other question, living in Mérida, eh, it is not even that different because I have Indigenous traits, I have Mayan surnames but, eh, well, maybe, I am on searches that are not that of most of the people who live here. Well, it is complicated. That is why I have also lived here for a long time, but a little apart, right? A little apart from the artistic part as well. More and more, I identify less with the movement of artists here, right? There are people with whom I work who interest me in their work, I am interested in their friendship, but it is not the majority. So, that’s why I don’t get involved in the artistic movement here either, because there are also things that are on the contrary; Not only do they not interest me, but I feel… that I prefer to be far away, so to speak. One of the things that I experienced for a long time, because they are the issues of how conservative Mérida is. Mérida is terrific, but it’s even better if you’re white, more so if you’re a foreigner. Then you have a better time because, well, eh, with money everything can -to begin with-, and they also treat you differently, right? -like everywhere-; but being here, eh, well you see the difference when you are someone with Mayan features and when you are not, right? And here is a good, very strong, class thing. So if you have a little more money, eh, it also shows how much better they treat you. Because also, now that there are festivals – now there is the Festival of the City of Mérida happening – and the festivals that the Institutions do in Yucatan; they always advertise the Maya as a pride. Like tourism, right? Tourism does here and in Quintana Roo -more, more than in Campeche but I suppose that the same, and more than in other parts-, ‘lo Maya’ is very latent for people from outside to come to have an experience, and take a picture, and so on. But the reality is that well, that does not benefit people who are Mayans, right? So, eh, the artistic thing, artists know that they have to give what they do the surname ‘Maya’ in order to be able to have support or to be able to enter into what the institution expects the artist to do because well, that is what they are very proud to show. So it bothers me a lot because well, I, I am, I have been very privileged because I had, uh, well, certain conditions that have allowed me to do so; But because I know the experience of my mother who comes from a town, I know the experience of my father who changed his surname, who come from poor families and I know that these things – although I did not experience them, although I do not understand them at all, I don’t understand them from the body, I don’t have like… I don’t know, I don’t know what word it would be-, but I don’t feel comfortable announcing a job from ‘lo Maya’, when my experience is different. And when my way of living, my roots are different, right? In other words, I am very sure that the artists who advertise from there are very few, very, very few who have experienced it from the body itself, right? And I speak from the body itself, which is why we are talking about ‘when experiencing it with the body’ is something that is not; that only then you can know it.
S: If there is such a complex part because this has been an experience that is seen throughout the country and throughout many cultures. They teach you and tell you that your roots are wrong, but then as the political face towards the outside is to announce being proud of being Mayan but socially there is a hidden, hypocritical repression; because there is class discrimination and there is discrimination because of your origins. The positions are also difficult because there are people the same not only in the area of dance but in other areas of art or other areas of life where your dignity is involved, but there are many people who are looking for a way to survive and continue doing their thing. This contradiction seems very strong to me and I see it more and more as a very strong concern for the human spirit.
M: No, definitely. Of course I understand that you have to do what you have to do to eat, right? Of course I understand it, but I mentioned why I don’t feel identified, because, eh, within the context of the arts, -mainly the performing arts-, eh, we are also people who ‘want to save the world’, eh, and that ‘we fight for social justice causes…’ Well, it seems to me that, although we all bite our tongues -and it is part of the human condition-, these issues do sensitize me a lot. In other words, having that experience of: “I am going to advertise from the Maya to have a project so that a project can be approved”, that is, to put myself in a place of at least now not to do it, to resist, to resist. Either way! Even if you don’t have a job here in Merida, right? Although with the pandemic I did consider it, I said: ‘current situation: make a work or use my Indigenous features and my place of origin to make a work’.
S: Alright Manuel, uh, I’m going to go to the last part. This is a quicker question section.
S: Any favorite songwriter, music album or song?
M: Ugh, eh, I listen to a lot of popular music and a lot, eh this yes, no, what I listen to the most is popular music that is closer to rock. Lately hip hop and a certain type of electronic, a bit experimental, noisy, but it is, it is, it is the first thing that comes to mind because it is also what I have been listening to the most.
S: A favorite movie?
M: Oh, okay, this, the El Decálogo of this director who is Polish that I never know how to say his name well, so if I say it I’m surely going to expose myself a lot but nothing happens, this, this Krzysztof Kieślowski.
S: Kieślowski, yes. Okay, okay, very good.
M: It is that the last name always ‘sticks to my tongue.’
S: Eh, a favorite book or reading?
M: You know? Well, you don’t know why I haven’t told you but I read very little, I read very little.
S: Ha ha, I didn’t know.
M: No, I read very little, I read… in fact a lot of manuals. But lately I’ve been reading some, this one, written by an Argentine thinker that I really like who is a little ‘mas ‘pa’llá’ y ‘pa’cá’, but I like it a lot. Her name is Leonor Silvestri, who has as, from her particular point of view, certain problems that have to do mainly with political correctness. So I really like it because it confronts it, right? It confronts many things. Sometimes it seems very rude to me but it is fine.
S: So, so is the world the truth in many ways, eh, artistic influences?
M: The most recent I would say are my friends -with the people I work with-: Arturo Lugo, Shantí Vera, eh, Dalel Bacre, Jessica Elizondo. I think they are the most direct influences that I have at the moment, or for some time now, but… artists that have impacted me? Well, Tamara Cubas impacted me a lot when I worked with her. Also, before this, Jorge Vargas. It seemed to me that the same thing, that many things resonated with me when I worked on a project with him in Mérida. And well, of artists that I don’t know and that I like a lot, oh, there are several! Which one, which one could I mention right now that I like a lot, a lot? There are, then, choreographers from, to see who could it be? Let’s see, I’m trying to remember. It is also that my references are very old.
S: It doesn’t matter, launch it now.
M: Well, I really like Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker‘s eighties and nineties work. A lot, like this, a lot, a lot, about… besides the first choreographers that began to interest me as someone who came from sound because their works are super musical, right? Super, super musical.
S: Very good advice someone has given you, and very bad advice?
M: Ay! Those are difficult. This is very bad advice: “Do good without looking at who.” It seems to me terrible advice. It seems to me that it is good to look at where we do things. And very good advice… Oh! And I’m going to hear myself more nerdy than normal but the one about: “no wasting time”, right? Sounds like the best advice right?
S: Total, total, because there is also no way to recover it, right?
M: That’s right, it’s difficult.
S: What advice would you give an artist? What, what would you share? An advice that you did not know but discovered during these years.
M: Yes. I think the most, what I have most in mind is doing your own work. In other words, if someone is interested in doing it, it seems to me that it has to be done, right? Without explanations, it has to be done. And I understand that sometimes it is complicated. In my case I, eh, well, for the economic part I needed to do a lot of work to be able to do my project but then I no longer had time to do my project, right? And when I started doing my project, well, I didn’t have the financial conditions to make it happen the way I would have liked. So the sooner I start, the better because besides, uh, it’s difficult, right? It is difficult to understand that in most of the projects where we participate, we actually participate from a place where we are employees, right? It is very – at least what I have lived through – is that the only person who benefits from the projects are the owners, the directors. And that collaborative projects are very complex – especially those that last a long time. The projects that are advertised as collectives, aaah, it seems to me that they do not work so well that way, that the best way to show their work seems to me is to do it perhaps personally. And what yes, is to look for a good working team and seek the working team. It seems to me that it is necessary to give the best conditions to that working team so that it can, precisely, be part of the project that you are doing, right?; then pay them well and give them the freedom that you would also like them to give you so that it really works. Because if not, then what a joke? If not, we all better do everything.
S: Hey now, the last question. If one day someone came and told you “no, you can’t make music anymore, you can’t be on stage anymore, you can’t direct anything anymore, you can’t do what you like to do anymore”, what would happen to you?
M: Hmm, what would happen? Is it another pandemic? That is the situation of another pandemic! Well, what would happen to me? Yes, ok. If I have money – if the problem is not money – then I would dedicate myself to learning about plants and making gardens perhaps. It’s the first thing that occurred to me right now, right? Or architecture, right? How to learn architecture and do tests. It also has to do with because, well, I’m generally locked up but then with the pandemic, well, I’m more locked up then, I see that these things about architecture and plants have interested me a lot because it is also their, eh, Well, where do you live, right? Now, if I had to make a living – like now – from something, what would I do? This one, I don’t know! It’s difficult because, I mean, I don’t like to work, I mean, no, really! I do not like to work. In other words, because I don’t see what I do from one place… that is, I take it very seriously and I see that I take it a lot very seriously -as most artists do-; more seriously than most people who work in a, uh, traditional way, right? It seems to me that there is, but on the other hand, everything that is named as work, the truth is that I do not like it, right? I mean, I don’t, I don’t know, I don’t know what I’d do.
S: Very good! Well, those are the questions Manuel. Thank you very much for a very pleasant conversation! Time went by fast!
M: Oh, me too! Yes, thank you very much for inviting me. I had a great time and yes, it was very enjoyable.
References:
- Escuela Superior de Artes de Yucatán: https://www.esay.edu.mx/wp/
- Jorge Vargas: https://www.fronteraarts.com/teatro-linea-de-sombra
- Lourdes Luna: https://lpac.nyc/blog/2019/9/27/meet-leonor-luna-one-of-the-leading-women-of-mexican-dance
- Tamara Cubas: http://www.keyperformance.se/?page_id=456
- Eun Jung Choi: https://www.eunjungchoi.org/bio
- Jaciel Neri: http://www.dancefestival.lt/2014/10/jaciel-neri-moving-borders-meksika/?lang=en
- Shanti Vera: http://shantivera.blogspot.com/p/shanti-vera.html
- Jaime Camarena: https://danceinteractive.jacobspillow.org/a-poc-a-poc/voz-sumergida/
- Roberto Olivan: https://www.robertoolivan.com/roberto-olivan/
- Francisco Cordova: https://www.physicalmomentumproject.com/francisco-cordova
- Aladino Blanca: https://www.insidethebody.org/aladinorblanca
- National Fund for Culture and the arts (FONCA): https://fonca.cultura.gob.mx/
- Premio Nacional de Danza Guillermo Arriaga: https://inba.gob.mx/prensa/14760/el-premio-nacional-de-danzaguillermo-arriagase-reprogramara-para-2021
- Diana Bayardo: http://makinadt.com/integrantes/show/1
- Gervasio Cetto: http://makinadt.com/integrantes/show/2
- Jessica Elizondo: https://www.jesicaelizondo.com/
- Merida: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A9rida,_Yucat%C3%A1n
- Halachó: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halach%C3%B3_Municipality
- Maya: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_peoples
- Tamara cubas: http://www.keyperformance.se/?page_id=456
- Mákina de Turing: http://makinadt.com/nosotros/english
- San Cristóbal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Crist%C3%B3bal_de_las_Casas
- Tabasco: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabasco
- Xalapa: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xalapa
- Yucatán: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucat%C3%A1n
- Campeche: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campeche
- Quintana Roo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quintana_Roo
- Chiapas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiapas
- Veracruz: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veracruz
- Mérida is terrific, but it’s even better if you’re white, more so if you’re a foreigner: https://www.forbes.com/sites/norawalsh/2017/11/16/a-guide-to-merida-mexico-10-reasons-to-visit-now/?sh=44ef13fc79a4
- Todos los objetos que se mueven: https://vimeo.com/317993551
- Piratié: A person pirating (selling fake) merchandise.
- Jésica Elizondo: https://www.jesicaelizondo.com/
- Festival 4 x 4: https://www.cuatroxcuatro.org/calendar.html
- Región sureste: https://libguides.uky.edu/vivamexico/se (english)
- El Decálogo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dekalog
- Krzysztof Kieślowski: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krzysztof_Kie%C5%9Blowski
- Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker: https://www.rosas.be/en/8-anne-teresa-de-keersmaeker
Leonor Silvestri: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonor_Silvestri