Frontera | Border - A Living Monument

“He told me: Prepare for tomorrow, we will cross the border. To cross at the first try is not far from a dream. After the slope, walk with great care, the way to the other side is plagued with snakes”

                                                                                                                                                    Popular “corrido” song, author unknown

Rooted in an ancient pre-Hispanic dance form that historically meets a “Danza de Conquista”, (a Conquest Dance), which  re-enacts the battles between Mors and Christians in the Iberian peninsula.This dance was implemented by the Spanish Crown (Casa Austria /Habsburg) to develop the conquest of Mexico as a form of racist propaganda. 

This old dance is practiced and actualized again during the 1990’s  by a group of youngsters from Matamoros, Tamaulipas (MX) at the border between Mexico and the U.S. Led by dance leader Rodrigo de la Torre, the dance is practiced today, in a context where extreme violence, narco traffic, militarization, and cheap labor industries meet.

Frontera | Border, proposes a living monument, a monumental dance, as a homage to the power and resilience of those whose bodies carry borders,  to those who dear to cross.

The piece corresponds to the fourth volume of the research on “Endangered Human Movements”, a long-term project carried out by choreographer Amanda Piña on the current loss of planetary bio-cultural diversity.