Saturday, July 4, 2009
TRAVELS WITH TRAVIS - ARTISAN PROFILE - HERMELINDA REYES ASCENCIO
TRAVELSWITHTRAVIS - MICHOACAN - ARTISAN PROFILE - HERMELINDA REYES ASCENCIO
By Travis M. Whitehead
COCUCHO - Her bold hands coaxed the thread through the cotton, relinquishing a fragment of the kaleidoscopic hues within her soul to cavort freely across the white landscape. The joints of her fingers moving with a tender dexterity, 84-year-old Hermelinda Reyes Ascencio pulled the filament through the material surrounding a needlepoint flower radiant with shades of violet, magenta, and lavender. She looked closely at the aqua and maroon forms stirring on the empty background, the seasons of her life written in artful prose across her face.
"I enjoy all of it from start to finish," said Hermelinda in her granddaughter Elena's yard as she worked on a guanengo. Her face occasionally broke into a thin, placid smile as she nudged the flowers into existence, courageously bringing the field of nothingness to the edge of a sheer cliff where it dove into a delicious exuberance of color. "The flowers are the most difficult. When I make the flowers, I can put the leaves in place. I make the flowers, and then I can fill the rest in." She spoke with the soft consonants and pinched whispers of her native Purepecha as her grandson Heraclio Reyes Remigio, 35, translated into English. Hermelinda doesn't speak Spanish, only Purepecha.
Cocucho, noted for its elegant clay pots, has also earned a reputation for its needlepoint artisans. I discovered this additional aspect of the town during a visit to Paracho a few days before the annual guitar festival in August 2008 when I ran into Juana Alonso Hernandez. She was doing some needlepoint with her comadre, Catalina Blas, after they had set up a station in the patio of the Casa de la Cultura to sell their Cocuchas. Elena Reyes Remigio, 26, had already set up her station nearby to sell her needlepoint. They invited me to visit them after the feria, and I eagerly accepted.
Arriving in Cocucho on a late Thursday morning, I first visited Juana's house, then went up the street a few blocks to the main square around noon where I purchased much-needed batteries for my digital camera at a small store. A stone cross stood on the main road through town, facing Templo de San Bartolome. The church wore a stone facade and scalloped parapet and loudspeakers clustered around a smaller cross on top; a road led away from the church toward Nurio.
A line of buildings wrapped around two sides of the plaza enclosing raised planting areas with
benches and leafy trees. The entrance to Elena's home stood recessed against a stone wall beneath brick arches. Elena met me at the door, and I entered a wooden entryway into a long vestibule of concrete-covered brick. A girl shouted commands from a nearby home, a muffled voice blared from a loudspeaker. Ears of corn hung from a long rope across the top of the left wall to dry before being ground into nixtamal for the upcoming Fiesta de San Bartolome in late August. Elena's six-year-old boy, Jesus Adain, dashed about in a pair of camouflage jeans.
Elena had several projects in the midst of completion, one of them a camisa de hombre - men's shirt, with panels of light blue and swirling black lines ending in bulbous Xs. She was also working on a guanengo adorned with violet blooms and green stems trailing across a reddish orange background. A needle dragging a length of thread in its wake lay impaled in mid-flight through a section of the fabric ensconced in an aro, - hoop.
The greatest challenge in the craft, Elena said, presents itself when she forms the borders for the different panels of color. "You have to count how many lines, and then you start making the flowers," said Elena, who prefers making guanengos, although she does make aprons, servilletas, and rebozos.
"That's what we're used to making," said Elena. "I enjoy putting the colors together."
Like many artisans, she prefers not using the same design twice. "We just make one design and then start with a new one. No two are alike, unless someone comesand asks for it."
Her brother, a husky fellow in dusty jeans and black jersey, had now arrived at the house, taking a break from his construction job to translate the interview and explain the needlepoint technique; he even showed some drawings of designs he made for his family to transform into needlepoint. He'd learned English while living in Portland, Oregon for 10 years, where he'd eventually worked as a line cook and earned his GED before returning to Mexico, now fluent in English as well as Spanish and Purepecha.
His grandmother, Hermelinda, soon entered the vestibule, moving with a tranquil grace in her pink lace-trimmed dress. She took a seat in the sun-drenched garden where her hands, defying the pestilence of time, awakened another piece of fabric from its slumber. The early afternoon sun skipped across the thick gray braids diving across her back; she wore a blouse rife with an ecstatic wonder of purple and lime green panels riddled with spinning wheels bathed in yellow stars and flame-tinted diamonds.
Typically, Heraclio explained, artisans purchase books of needlepoint designs that give the stitch
count so that they can follow the pattern. "She makes her own designs. A lot of people can't make their own designs, but she can. My grandmother, she started this when my mother was 18 years old."
Hermelinda learned to do needlepoint when her daughter decided to perform in a regional dance
competition. Her own mother, who had not pursued the craft as a livelihood, taught her the technique, and from that singular influence Hermelinda built a family legacy that has extended to her grandchildren.
"I am happy to do this," said his grandmother, looking up from the guanengo alive with flowers in fluttering tones of purple and blue romping about the material. "I feel more happy because I am the one who started this. I started making them in 1966."
What happened next provided the impetus to develop her skill into a livelihood. Her sister-in-law asked her to make some guanengos, then she sold them as her own in Uruapan and kept the money. Some of Hermelinda's friends saw this and reported back to her. Apparently, the woman had even won a contest with a guanengo made by Hermelinda.
Was Hermelinda especially angry? Was there a confrontation?
"No," Heraclio said. "She's my grandmother. She doesn't do like that."
Instead, Hermelinda made more guanengos and sold them herself in Uruapan and Guadalajara,
selling sometimes 20 at a time.
Guanengos are the most popular items for her customers. One guanengo, Heraclio said, requires three or four months to complete, and she'll only earn about $30 or $40.
"People here don't pay that much. Some American people come and pay a little bit more than people here."
Although Hermelinda still endows her pieces with a youthful energy, the years have prevented her from working the way she once did. She doesn't make rebozos anymore because the tassels, or rebasejos, around the hem have become too difficult. While she used to labor eight or nine hours a day, she now works only one or two hours.
While copious flourishes of orange, mauve, violet, magenta, deep ocean blue and opulent green rush in torrents across the guanengos of today, they haven't always commanded such a visual prominence.
"It was just like this," said Heraclio, holding up a miniature rebozo with simple black key work.
The more colorful designs arrived on the scene in the 1980s. "Things are changing, making flowers, having more color."
Heraclio's grandmother reached into her plastic bag and pulled out wads of purple, green, and aqua blue thread. Selecting some butterscotch that glistened in the sun, she began another leg of her journey through a patch of flowers that danced to the melody played by her fingers across the white meadow.
By Travis M. Whitehead
COCUCHO - Her bold hands coaxed the thread through the cotton, relinquishing a fragment of the kaleidoscopic hues within her soul to cavort freely across the white landscape. The joints of her fingers moving with a tender dexterity, 84-year-old Hermelinda Reyes Ascencio pulled the filament through the material surrounding a needlepoint flower radiant with shades of violet, magenta, and lavender. She looked closely at the aqua and maroon forms stirring on the empty background, the seasons of her life written in artful prose across her face.
"I enjoy all of it from start to finish," said Hermelinda in her granddaughter Elena's yard as she worked on a guanengo. Her face occasionally broke into a thin, placid smile as she nudged the flowers into existence, courageously bringing the field of nothingness to the edge of a sheer cliff where it dove into a delicious exuberance of color. "The flowers are the most difficult. When I make the flowers, I can put the leaves in place. I make the flowers, and then I can fill the rest in." She spoke with the soft consonants and pinched whispers of her native Purepecha as her grandson Heraclio Reyes Remigio, 35, translated into English. Hermelinda doesn't speak Spanish, only Purepecha.
Cocucho, noted for its elegant clay pots, has also earned a reputation for its needlepoint artisans. I discovered this additional aspect of the town during a visit to Paracho a few days before the annual guitar festival in August 2008 when I ran into Juana Alonso Hernandez. She was doing some needlepoint with her comadre, Catalina Blas, after they had set up a station in the patio of the Casa de la Cultura to sell their Cocuchas. Elena Reyes Remigio, 26, had already set up her station nearby to sell her needlepoint. They invited me to visit them after the feria, and I eagerly accepted.
Arriving in Cocucho on a late Thursday morning, I first visited Juana's house, then went up the street a few blocks to the main square around noon where I purchased much-needed batteries for my digital camera at a small store. A stone cross stood on the main road through town, facing Templo de San Bartolome. The church wore a stone facade and scalloped parapet and loudspeakers clustered around a smaller cross on top; a road led away from the church toward Nurio.
A line of buildings wrapped around two sides of the plaza enclosing raised planting areas with
benches and leafy trees. The entrance to Elena's home stood recessed against a stone wall beneath brick arches. Elena met me at the door, and I entered a wooden entryway into a long vestibule of concrete-covered brick. A girl shouted commands from a nearby home, a muffled voice blared from a loudspeaker. Ears of corn hung from a long rope across the top of the left wall to dry before being ground into nixtamal for the upcoming Fiesta de San Bartolome in late August. Elena's six-year-old boy, Jesus Adain, dashed about in a pair of camouflage jeans.
Elena had several projects in the midst of completion, one of them a camisa de hombre - men's shirt, with panels of light blue and swirling black lines ending in bulbous Xs. She was also working on a guanengo adorned with violet blooms and green stems trailing across a reddish orange background. A needle dragging a length of thread in its wake lay impaled in mid-flight through a section of the fabric ensconced in an aro, - hoop.
The greatest challenge in the craft, Elena said, presents itself when she forms the borders for the different panels of color. "You have to count how many lines, and then you start making the flowers," said Elena, who prefers making guanengos, although she does make aprons, servilletas, and rebozos.
"That's what we're used to making," said Elena. "I enjoy putting the colors together."
Like many artisans, she prefers not using the same design twice. "We just make one design and then start with a new one. No two are alike, unless someone comesand asks for it."
Her brother, a husky fellow in dusty jeans and black jersey, had now arrived at the house, taking a break from his construction job to translate the interview and explain the needlepoint technique; he even showed some drawings of designs he made for his family to transform into needlepoint. He'd learned English while living in Portland, Oregon for 10 years, where he'd eventually worked as a line cook and earned his GED before returning to Mexico, now fluent in English as well as Spanish and Purepecha.
His grandmother, Hermelinda, soon entered the vestibule, moving with a tranquil grace in her pink lace-trimmed dress. She took a seat in the sun-drenched garden where her hands, defying the pestilence of time, awakened another piece of fabric from its slumber. The early afternoon sun skipped across the thick gray braids diving across her back; she wore a blouse rife with an ecstatic wonder of purple and lime green panels riddled with spinning wheels bathed in yellow stars and flame-tinted diamonds.
Typically, Heraclio explained, artisans purchase books of needlepoint designs that give the stitch
count so that they can follow the pattern. "She makes her own designs. A lot of people can't make their own designs, but she can. My grandmother, she started this when my mother was 18 years old."
Hermelinda learned to do needlepoint when her daughter decided to perform in a regional dance
competition. Her own mother, who had not pursued the craft as a livelihood, taught her the technique, and from that singular influence Hermelinda built a family legacy that has extended to her grandchildren.
"I am happy to do this," said his grandmother, looking up from the guanengo alive with flowers in fluttering tones of purple and blue romping about the material. "I feel more happy because I am the one who started this. I started making them in 1966."
What happened next provided the impetus to develop her skill into a livelihood. Her sister-in-law asked her to make some guanengos, then she sold them as her own in Uruapan and kept the money. Some of Hermelinda's friends saw this and reported back to her. Apparently, the woman had even won a contest with a guanengo made by Hermelinda.
Was Hermelinda especially angry? Was there a confrontation?
"No," Heraclio said. "She's my grandmother. She doesn't do like that."
Instead, Hermelinda made more guanengos and sold them herself in Uruapan and Guadalajara,
selling sometimes 20 at a time.
Guanengos are the most popular items for her customers. One guanengo, Heraclio said, requires three or four months to complete, and she'll only earn about $30 or $40.
"People here don't pay that much. Some American people come and pay a little bit more than people here."
Although Hermelinda still endows her pieces with a youthful energy, the years have prevented her from working the way she once did. She doesn't make rebozos anymore because the tassels, or rebasejos, around the hem have become too difficult. While she used to labor eight or nine hours a day, she now works only one or two hours.
While copious flourishes of orange, mauve, violet, magenta, deep ocean blue and opulent green rush in torrents across the guanengos of today, they haven't always commanded such a visual prominence.
"It was just like this," said Heraclio, holding up a miniature rebozo with simple black key work.
The more colorful designs arrived on the scene in the 1980s. "Things are changing, making flowers, having more color."
Heraclio's grandmother reached into her plastic bag and pulled out wads of purple, green, and aqua blue thread. Selecting some butterscotch that glistened in the sun, she began another leg of her journey through a patch of flowers that danced to the melody played by her fingers across the white meadow.
TRAVELS WITH TRAVIS - CITY OF MORELIA
Dear Readers: To give you a sense of place about the artisans profiled in my book "Michoacan - Land of the Artisan" I also wrote a number of stories about the cities and villages themselves. This is a story about Morelia, the state capital of Michoacan.
TRAVELSWITHTRAVIS – MICHOACAN – CITY OF MORELIA
By Travis M. Whitehead
MORELIA – The four Viejitos, with piercing noses, shriveled cheeks, and audacious chins marking their knotted masks, spin around their wooden canes as they absorb the incantation of the cello and violin players. Two of the Viejitos performing in Plaza Presidente Juarez stand about four feet tall, making their wizened expressions even more comical; evening sunlight edges through water spiraling from a fountain and pitches green shadows past manicured ficus trees under the eternal watch of the Cathedral of Morelia, in the capital city of Michoacan 135 miles west of Mexico City.
It's a Saturday afternoon in May in Morelia, the birthplace of Jose Maria Morelos y Pavon who lead Mexico's War of Independence against Spain after the Rev. Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla was executed in 1811. Morelos studied at the Colegio de San Nicolas on Avenida Madero while Hidalgo was rector at the school; Morelos also studied at the Tridentine Seminary, now the Palacio del Gobierno.
This is a city of culture, of friendship, of perpetually good weather, a place of wide-ranging experiences to tantalize the imagination. Local transit buses have the words "paradas continuas" - continuous stops - and they have much to stop for. Any time of year, musical performances, theatrical presentations, and dance exhibitions fill the streets and plazas. The Cathedral holds a commanding presence over the historical center. Elegant columns and arches shade the perimeter; restaurants and clothing stores do a brisk business.
Morelia was founded first as Nueva Ciudad de Mechuacan in 1541 in the Valley of Guayangareo, inhabited at that time by the Matlatzinca Indians. The bishopric of Michoacan had been established in 1536 by royal and papal bull, with Tzintzuntzan, the ancient Purepecha capital, as the center of operations. However, when Vasco de Quiroga arrived in 1537, he moved the capital a few miles away to Patzcuaro, where civil and ecclesiastical operations were undertaken until 1580. At that time, they were transferred to Nueva Ciudad. The name was later changed to Valladolid. In 1828, after Mexico had won its independence from Spain, the city’s name was changed to Morelia in honor of Morelos, who was born in 1765 and executed in 1815. The modest home in the historical center where Morelos was born is a perfect place to learn more about this revered leader.
Morelia has retained much of its Spanish colonial flavor. The city’s elegant cantera stone buildings, remnants of their creators' yearnings for eternity, line the streets in the historical center, situated so that rays of sunshine create fine displays of light and shadow. They radiate with the energy of their builders who strangled the lassitude from the stone, harnessing its power, rolling back the veil of convulsive disorder, revealing a pitiless display of unprovoked genius transformed from Earth's madness.
A perfect example of this grandeur is the Cathedral of Morelia. Construction on the cathedral began in the 1600s to replace a temporary cathedral that was located to the southwest of the present building. The cathedral was completed in 1744. The façade is a pleasant, not over-zealous, array of columns with scrolled capitals (tops of columns) and acanthus leaves. The sculpting of the Transfiguration of Christ shows an older, more solemn Christ than those in the cathedrals of Saltillo and Zacatecas. He opens his arms to the world as he ascends into the heavens – blue sky opened by sunlight, shrouded in clouds. The stone around him comes alive with tiny angels in flight. Sculptures of the Magi and the Shepherds stand in silent respect of the image.
Smooth pink stone rushes through three levels of the façade past the weathered white images of Sts. Mark, Luke, Matthew, and John that stare across Madero toward the Portales – arches that line the streets and broad walkways. Inside the cathedral, vaults high above the cavernous structure show panels of geometric designs and floral patterns in subtle colors of red and sky blue. Chandeliers help balance the overpowering height of the ceiling. The central vault has a stained glass window with a picture of Christ ascending into the clouds, strong swirling lines creating a sense of movement.
The cathedral is filled with chapels holding gilded altars and deep red gladiolus and candles, a painting of the Virgin, and brass crucifixes. At the end of the aisle, there’s an image of a dark-skinned Christ with his arms stretched across a crucifix. He's wrapped in a purple loin cloth, and gold and brass stylized trees stand at the foot of the cross.
Outside in Plaza Presidente Juarez a young girl with a balloon grimaces from her blue stroller as one of the young Viejitos breaks into a frenzy of furious dancing, his feet rising high and then crashing into the pavement, the wooden shoes discharging a powerful "Clack! Clack! Clackety-clackety-clackety-clack!" like the metallic chuckle of slow trains. His tiny figure, hunched over, pounds furiously into the concrete, spinning, rising high into the air like a ball of fire, the colors of the poncho and ribbons erupting, escaping in a mad dash as the crowd hails its approval. The blue geometric designs racing across his white poncho flare out like wings taking flight. Panels of deer and roosters gyrate around the hems of cotton trousers as he and the others wrap their fingers around the twisted knobs of their canes and whirl to the audience's delight.
As the music and dance evaporate, children chase bubbles careening from a wand dipped into a bowl of soap by a woman selling the magic potion. Along the walkways, artists sell watercolors of the cathedral, cubist paintings of women with children, oil on canvas works of Los Viejitos smiling for the painter. Nearby, a woman sells balloons that wave in the slight breeze tethered to a single string with slogans like "Felicidades Mama" and "Feliz Dia, Mama" and "Sorpresa" in sheer maroon and lime green and cherry red. It's Mother's Day.
On Calle Hidalgo, a young girl with frizzy braids and an orange and black tie-dye tank top dances with complete abandon as five men erupt into a chant-like scream while they pound away on African percussion instruments: the sagban, kenkeni, djembe, vala, dundun, and campanas. Kandumba, a group of locals who study African music and dance, are giving a performance near the Cathedral. A few days later, the day the parade celebrating Morelia's birthday files down Avenida Madero, they are back in Plaza Presidente Juarez, the music seesawing in a delirium of sound, bushy ponytails flailing the air. Two women and a man dance before the group, arms winging out, fists clenched, hair soaring out and back in, the dance then slowing to a trickle.
Chants burst forth from the players, who then engage in a call and response with the dancers, the shouts ricocheting in a volley of sound, resurrecting a primordial ecstasy that finds release as the players wrench the syncopated drumbeats from their instruments. They move in the dwindling light, guttural sounds coughed from the bowels of their instruments, portals into a hidden sanctuary of the soul where the birthplace of rhythm and dance still dwells, the wise gods waiting for the summons to share humanity's birthright.
Music's multilingual dialect finds venues for its expression here throughout the year. One evening in 2005, crowds of people gathered to watch a performance by various “tunas”, groups of musicians, in a concert called Encuentro De Tunas Universitarias Morelia 2005. Some wore blue vests, others had gold trim and fluttering ribbons across their backs. The performers were lit by floodlights against the backdrop of the Templo San Agustin and the dwindling gray twilight. Driving music burst from tricordias; guitars and tambourines pierced the darkness of modern life, leading the crowd into a magical past, or perhaps spicing up the present with its imagery. Mellow chords backed up high-pitched melody lines interspersed with electrifying vocals to the delight of an applauding audience.
Now as evening falls again I seek out more musical possibilities at Teatro Ocampo where four men appear on stage to play three violins and a cello. The music begins with a slow murmur indented with pensive sighs emanating from a violin. The sadness grows, wistfully evoking a disturbed memory crawling to the surface through the consciousness, shuddering, quivering, then falling into a slow moving stream. Suddenly it awakens, frustration rekindled, the dissonances pushing against each other into a tragic harmony, sorrowful conflicting emotions fusing then separating, hovering in the background through the stream of consciousness.
Hovering, pondering, falling into nothingness, dissipating to the outlying boundaries of the musical landscape, the notes coalesce into a tragic whole. Suddenly they're back again with a renewed vitality, dashing about, rushing in a frenzied scramble for satisfaction, shrill notes jumping, seesawing like the psychotic anger of a distressed soul, now resolute in its quest for justice, a woman humiliated into fury. Each musician takes turns plucking strings as the insanity crystallizes into focused and calculating barbarity. The music dashes from one precipice to another within sight of the glory of madness, as though insanity is seducing a tortured soul into the realm of universal justification.
In the second piece, notes slide around the stage, ill-defined, the cellist bouncing his bow across the strings. The musical artisans venture toward the precipice of discovery, musical possibilities dangling from a cliff, a spider dancing from a single thread over a candle. Chords rip together, clashing, compromising, exhausting their own dreams, resurrecting anguished notes, dragging them across their deliberate lives, stretching the limits of their musical language. They squeak, pour, slide, struggle for actualization, racing toward a harmony that lingers beyond reach, sad and dissonant notes struggling to find agreement and then, finding none, resign themselves to their dissonance and rush suddenly, irrevocably into nothingness.
In the third piece, more dissonance. Violins and cellos become percussion instruments, bows bouncing off strings like the hum of bumble bees, wrenching from the very abyss of the instrument's consciousness to borrow from some other musical alphabet, manifesting its tortured soul. High-pitched notes cut into the air, then all four charge onto the stage, shrill notes and a bass line like the galloping of terrified horses thundering through a dark wood. It slows, as if the riders, lost now in an exhausted ecstasy, stop to discover their fate.
Two lovers seek each other out - this is their meeting place. They've dismounted and now sneak through the woods, looking around trees and over rocks. They spy one another but, alas, soldiers have come seeking their beloved princess and the pauper who has captured her heart, the music rising in a crescendo of distress. He takes her hand and hides with her in a ravine until slowly, as the music fades, they are alone.
The musicians have stretched themselves beyond the limits of their own auditory dialect, cutting through the layers of mundane musical dogma, rearranging their musical alphabet, peeling away layers of prior discovery to find a heart beating vibrantly while cloistered in a stricken soul.
I discover yet another reason why I came here, to seek out the bartered and sacrificed remnants of my own consciousness, to rediscover my humanity by stretching myself to the farthest limits of my literary landscape, clamoring to find my poetic pulse.
TRAVELSWITHTRAVIS – MICHOACAN – CITY OF MORELIA
By Travis M. Whitehead
MORELIA – The four Viejitos, with piercing noses, shriveled cheeks, and audacious chins marking their knotted masks, spin around their wooden canes as they absorb the incantation of the cello and violin players. Two of the Viejitos performing in Plaza Presidente Juarez stand about four feet tall, making their wizened expressions even more comical; evening sunlight edges through water spiraling from a fountain and pitches green shadows past manicured ficus trees under the eternal watch of the Cathedral of Morelia, in the capital city of Michoacan 135 miles west of Mexico City.
It's a Saturday afternoon in May in Morelia, the birthplace of Jose Maria Morelos y Pavon who lead Mexico's War of Independence against Spain after the Rev. Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla was executed in 1811. Morelos studied at the Colegio de San Nicolas on Avenida Madero while Hidalgo was rector at the school; Morelos also studied at the Tridentine Seminary, now the Palacio del Gobierno.
This is a city of culture, of friendship, of perpetually good weather, a place of wide-ranging experiences to tantalize the imagination. Local transit buses have the words "paradas continuas" - continuous stops - and they have much to stop for. Any time of year, musical performances, theatrical presentations, and dance exhibitions fill the streets and plazas. The Cathedral holds a commanding presence over the historical center. Elegant columns and arches shade the perimeter; restaurants and clothing stores do a brisk business.
Morelia was founded first as Nueva Ciudad de Mechuacan in 1541 in the Valley of Guayangareo, inhabited at that time by the Matlatzinca Indians. The bishopric of Michoacan had been established in 1536 by royal and papal bull, with Tzintzuntzan, the ancient Purepecha capital, as the center of operations. However, when Vasco de Quiroga arrived in 1537, he moved the capital a few miles away to Patzcuaro, where civil and ecclesiastical operations were undertaken until 1580. At that time, they were transferred to Nueva Ciudad. The name was later changed to Valladolid. In 1828, after Mexico had won its independence from Spain, the city’s name was changed to Morelia in honor of Morelos, who was born in 1765 and executed in 1815. The modest home in the historical center where Morelos was born is a perfect place to learn more about this revered leader.
Morelia has retained much of its Spanish colonial flavor. The city’s elegant cantera stone buildings, remnants of their creators' yearnings for eternity, line the streets in the historical center, situated so that rays of sunshine create fine displays of light and shadow. They radiate with the energy of their builders who strangled the lassitude from the stone, harnessing its power, rolling back the veil of convulsive disorder, revealing a pitiless display of unprovoked genius transformed from Earth's madness.
A perfect example of this grandeur is the Cathedral of Morelia. Construction on the cathedral began in the 1600s to replace a temporary cathedral that was located to the southwest of the present building. The cathedral was completed in 1744. The façade is a pleasant, not over-zealous, array of columns with scrolled capitals (tops of columns) and acanthus leaves. The sculpting of the Transfiguration of Christ shows an older, more solemn Christ than those in the cathedrals of Saltillo and Zacatecas. He opens his arms to the world as he ascends into the heavens – blue sky opened by sunlight, shrouded in clouds. The stone around him comes alive with tiny angels in flight. Sculptures of the Magi and the Shepherds stand in silent respect of the image.
Smooth pink stone rushes through three levels of the façade past the weathered white images of Sts. Mark, Luke, Matthew, and John that stare across Madero toward the Portales – arches that line the streets and broad walkways. Inside the cathedral, vaults high above the cavernous structure show panels of geometric designs and floral patterns in subtle colors of red and sky blue. Chandeliers help balance the overpowering height of the ceiling. The central vault has a stained glass window with a picture of Christ ascending into the clouds, strong swirling lines creating a sense of movement.
The cathedral is filled with chapels holding gilded altars and deep red gladiolus and candles, a painting of the Virgin, and brass crucifixes. At the end of the aisle, there’s an image of a dark-skinned Christ with his arms stretched across a crucifix. He's wrapped in a purple loin cloth, and gold and brass stylized trees stand at the foot of the cross.
Outside in Plaza Presidente Juarez a young girl with a balloon grimaces from her blue stroller as one of the young Viejitos breaks into a frenzy of furious dancing, his feet rising high and then crashing into the pavement, the wooden shoes discharging a powerful "Clack! Clack! Clackety-clackety-clackety-clack!" like the metallic chuckle of slow trains. His tiny figure, hunched over, pounds furiously into the concrete, spinning, rising high into the air like a ball of fire, the colors of the poncho and ribbons erupting, escaping in a mad dash as the crowd hails its approval. The blue geometric designs racing across his white poncho flare out like wings taking flight. Panels of deer and roosters gyrate around the hems of cotton trousers as he and the others wrap their fingers around the twisted knobs of their canes and whirl to the audience's delight.
As the music and dance evaporate, children chase bubbles careening from a wand dipped into a bowl of soap by a woman selling the magic potion. Along the walkways, artists sell watercolors of the cathedral, cubist paintings of women with children, oil on canvas works of Los Viejitos smiling for the painter. Nearby, a woman sells balloons that wave in the slight breeze tethered to a single string with slogans like "Felicidades Mama" and "Feliz Dia, Mama" and "Sorpresa" in sheer maroon and lime green and cherry red. It's Mother's Day.
On Calle Hidalgo, a young girl with frizzy braids and an orange and black tie-dye tank top dances with complete abandon as five men erupt into a chant-like scream while they pound away on African percussion instruments: the sagban, kenkeni, djembe, vala, dundun, and campanas. Kandumba, a group of locals who study African music and dance, are giving a performance near the Cathedral. A few days later, the day the parade celebrating Morelia's birthday files down Avenida Madero, they are back in Plaza Presidente Juarez, the music seesawing in a delirium of sound, bushy ponytails flailing the air. Two women and a man dance before the group, arms winging out, fists clenched, hair soaring out and back in, the dance then slowing to a trickle.
Chants burst forth from the players, who then engage in a call and response with the dancers, the shouts ricocheting in a volley of sound, resurrecting a primordial ecstasy that finds release as the players wrench the syncopated drumbeats from their instruments. They move in the dwindling light, guttural sounds coughed from the bowels of their instruments, portals into a hidden sanctuary of the soul where the birthplace of rhythm and dance still dwells, the wise gods waiting for the summons to share humanity's birthright.
Music's multilingual dialect finds venues for its expression here throughout the year. One evening in 2005, crowds of people gathered to watch a performance by various “tunas”, groups of musicians, in a concert called Encuentro De Tunas Universitarias Morelia 2005. Some wore blue vests, others had gold trim and fluttering ribbons across their backs. The performers were lit by floodlights against the backdrop of the Templo San Agustin and the dwindling gray twilight. Driving music burst from tricordias; guitars and tambourines pierced the darkness of modern life, leading the crowd into a magical past, or perhaps spicing up the present with its imagery. Mellow chords backed up high-pitched melody lines interspersed with electrifying vocals to the delight of an applauding audience.
Now as evening falls again I seek out more musical possibilities at Teatro Ocampo where four men appear on stage to play three violins and a cello. The music begins with a slow murmur indented with pensive sighs emanating from a violin. The sadness grows, wistfully evoking a disturbed memory crawling to the surface through the consciousness, shuddering, quivering, then falling into a slow moving stream. Suddenly it awakens, frustration rekindled, the dissonances pushing against each other into a tragic harmony, sorrowful conflicting emotions fusing then separating, hovering in the background through the stream of consciousness.
Hovering, pondering, falling into nothingness, dissipating to the outlying boundaries of the musical landscape, the notes coalesce into a tragic whole. Suddenly they're back again with a renewed vitality, dashing about, rushing in a frenzied scramble for satisfaction, shrill notes jumping, seesawing like the psychotic anger of a distressed soul, now resolute in its quest for justice, a woman humiliated into fury. Each musician takes turns plucking strings as the insanity crystallizes into focused and calculating barbarity. The music dashes from one precipice to another within sight of the glory of madness, as though insanity is seducing a tortured soul into the realm of universal justification.
In the second piece, notes slide around the stage, ill-defined, the cellist bouncing his bow across the strings. The musical artisans venture toward the precipice of discovery, musical possibilities dangling from a cliff, a spider dancing from a single thread over a candle. Chords rip together, clashing, compromising, exhausting their own dreams, resurrecting anguished notes, dragging them across their deliberate lives, stretching the limits of their musical language. They squeak, pour, slide, struggle for actualization, racing toward a harmony that lingers beyond reach, sad and dissonant notes struggling to find agreement and then, finding none, resign themselves to their dissonance and rush suddenly, irrevocably into nothingness.
In the third piece, more dissonance. Violins and cellos become percussion instruments, bows bouncing off strings like the hum of bumble bees, wrenching from the very abyss of the instrument's consciousness to borrow from some other musical alphabet, manifesting its tortured soul. High-pitched notes cut into the air, then all four charge onto the stage, shrill notes and a bass line like the galloping of terrified horses thundering through a dark wood. It slows, as if the riders, lost now in an exhausted ecstasy, stop to discover their fate.
Two lovers seek each other out - this is their meeting place. They've dismounted and now sneak through the woods, looking around trees and over rocks. They spy one another but, alas, soldiers have come seeking their beloved princess and the pauper who has captured her heart, the music rising in a crescendo of distress. He takes her hand and hides with her in a ravine until slowly, as the music fades, they are alone.
The musicians have stretched themselves beyond the limits of their own auditory dialect, cutting through the layers of mundane musical dogma, rearranging their musical alphabet, peeling away layers of prior discovery to find a heart beating vibrantly while cloistered in a stricken soul.
I discover yet another reason why I came here, to seek out the bartered and sacrificed remnants of my own consciousness, to rediscover my humanity by stretching myself to the farthest limits of my literary landscape, clamoring to find my poetic pulse.
Friday, May 15, 2009
TRAVELS WITH TRAVIS - MORELIA'S BIRTHDAY
TRAVELSWITHTRAVIS - MICHOACAN - MORELIA'S BIRTHDAY
By Travis M. Whitehead
MORELIA - Dancers sheathed in emerald green and metallic blue paraded past the cathedral as captivated spectators craned their necks to absorb every nuance of the pageantry. The parade, in honor of Morelia's 467th birthday, filed slowly up Avenida Madero before ending in front of the cathedral; voluminous hats, glittering crowns of chili red and mango gold, and headdresses bristling with artificial bananas, watermelons, and carrots, bobbed through the air in step with the virulent passion of the night as explosive music crashed about the streets.
Sparks ruptured the night, belching forth from small posts on the black iron fence around the cathedral, a fortress of spirituality passing through the centuries and arriving at this moment; an explosion pierced the prismatic glitter of sound and motion with shreds of lavender, aqua blue, and gold tissue paper that hovered for a moment, twirling, twisting, and shimmering before it fell in watery waves over the crowd.
It was Saturday, May 17, the day before the anniversary of Morelia's founding in 1541, and a jubilant anticipation had electrified downtown all afternoon. Crowds collected on bleachers along Avenida Madero several hours before the parade, and a stage blocked the major thoroughfare at the intersection of Calle Abasalo where Raul D'Blasio, an Argentine pianist, would perform at the conclusion of the event.
Two small boys who would soon don their Viejito masks played with a gray Schnauzer in Plaza Presidente Juarez on the west side of the cathedral, while a young man in sunglasses and an earring played vociferously on a guitar and a teenager dressed in traditional cotton garb strummed a cello. One of the boys, still without a mask, clasped his hands behind his back and did a brief jig past the musicians. Cathedral bells rang during a lull in the violin and cello and the imposing piped-in music from the stage, while fountains caressed the afternoon breeze with a kiss of tranquility.
Down Calle San Augustin between Plaza Presidente Juarez and Templo de San Augustin, vendors had set up tables where they sold bags of coconut chunks and potato chips, mangos mounted on sticks and sliced to resemble flowers; pistachios and peanuts and pumpkin seeds; empanadas; nieves de pasta from Patzcuaro. A woman waved mischievous insects away from a table covered with cajeta, strawberry, and milk empanadas, a little girl carefully wrapped a napkin around her cup of vanilla ice cream; the older young lady in front of her purchased a bag of chicharrones with onions, cilantro, tomatoes and lime juice. A woman in a green plaid bib over her voluptuous blue dress leaned over a bowl as she carved corn from a cob.
A young man draped his arm across the shoulders of his mother who wore a tired scarf as they passed watercolors of the cathedral and aqueducts while eager horn music slid across the plaza. A man munching on chunks of coconut with his hat pulled low over his eyes stops to look at a series of paintings that seduce passersby to create their own stories; women strolling away from the viewer down ill-defined walkways, a man embracing a cello and turning his back; a robust fellow sitting with his wheeled cart. You can't see their faces. You wonder what the fellow is selling, what the musician will play, where the women are going.
Next to the cathedral, young dancers in rippling dresses of cobalt blue, lime green, and magenta performed to the "Mexican Hat Dance" and "Guadalajara" with partners in broad sombreros and red sashes around black trousers and white cotton shirts. Kandumba in Plaza Presidente Juarez delivered another one of its hypnotic performances.
At Cafe Europa a few blocks down the street, a man cradled a sleeping baby while the mother folded an embroidered napkin and two girls fidgeted around the table. A teenage couple sat pouring over some books next to two empty plastic containers filled with crumpled napkins. Outside, a man rode a yellow motor scooter up the street, the only vehicle along the thoroughfare now closed off for the parade.
A group of grinning young men in their late teens and early 20s walked up the street chanting and punching their fists in the air. The temperamental flounces of a woman's peach-colored dress flipped nervously around her legs as she rushed by; a girl with spiderweb stockings on her arms, the image of a rib cage on her black shirt, and two lip piercings walked by with her mother and two brothers. A man with a load of cotton candy suspended from a pole over his shoulder strolled past a man spinning an organ grinder, the whimsical, confectionary tunes showering the air with a sort of musical glitter. The bleachers now full, people now took their places on the curb.
As sunlight vacated the city, crowds filled any remaining spaces downtown like paint pouring into the interstices of a canvas. A Cher concert played on large screens mounted on the black iron fence in front of the cathedral. Green light scintillated across the facade, whistles and oohs and aahs frequently erupted from the restless crowd that leaned against the rails as an announcer gave a brief history of Morelia's founding. A girl of about 14, with a microscopic piece of jewelry glittering in her nose, laughed with her mother and older friend who chewed vigorously on a piece of gum. A woman with light copper flourishes in her permed hair, and gracious eyes planted deep within her aging cheeks gestured eagerly with her hands as she spoke to a friend. A teenage girl wore a shirt with the words, "La La La I Can't Hear You La La La."
A young girl in pig tails stepped through the rails into the street to check on the progress of the parade but didn't appear to see anything. Then, realizing this section of the street had replaced the Cher concert on the screen in front of her, delight seemed to awaken her eyes as a smile slipped away from her nose, invoking an appearance of demure innocence. She ran back out and did a little jig to see herself, kicking out her legs, flapping her arms, laughing with glee, quickly followed by other children eager for their own few minutes of fame.
Finally the parade arrived, a cavalcade of cavorting dancers, horses, carriages, and esteemed personages. A couple in extravagantly feathered hats sweeping behind them and willowy costumes fluttering in the night air floated astride a vehicle, followed immediately by a second conveyance with men in black habits standing over a native carving something in stone. Women with rebozos falling over their cotton dresses danced before a young man dressed in black and standing atop a float. Wearing a distinctive red Jose Maria Morelos cap, he looked sternly over the crowd from behind desk.
Music pounded the night and a little girl on a woman's shoulders put her hands to her ears. Red, white, and green flags rose up and down in rhythm to the music behind Morelos. Fireworks bolted from the ground, lavender and orange showers leaping from the sky moments later. The moon caressed the black sky between the cathedral towers; turbulent fire vibrated in the windows, rapturous music throttled the air - drums, synthesized music, crystallized keyboards enthralled downtown. Towering jesters on stilts floated by, a machine sent soap bubbles flittering over the crowd, dancers with glittered faces danced and clapped to the music.
Finally, the parade ended, and Raul D'Blasio stepped onto the titanic stage and charmed the audience with his endearing humor and powerful piano performance, his image projected onto a large screen. Several times people farther down the street chanted "No se oyen! No se oyen!" because they couldn't hear him, but it had been a beautiful night, and nothing could contaminate the feeling of enchantment and peace that emanated from the timeless structures ranging up and down the avenues of the old city. This day of thanksgiving for Morelia's long life had concluded with the hope of many more years to come.
By Travis M. Whitehead
MORELIA - Dancers sheathed in emerald green and metallic blue paraded past the cathedral as captivated spectators craned their necks to absorb every nuance of the pageantry. The parade, in honor of Morelia's 467th birthday, filed slowly up Avenida Madero before ending in front of the cathedral; voluminous hats, glittering crowns of chili red and mango gold, and headdresses bristling with artificial bananas, watermelons, and carrots, bobbed through the air in step with the virulent passion of the night as explosive music crashed about the streets.
Sparks ruptured the night, belching forth from small posts on the black iron fence around the cathedral, a fortress of spirituality passing through the centuries and arriving at this moment; an explosion pierced the prismatic glitter of sound and motion with shreds of lavender, aqua blue, and gold tissue paper that hovered for a moment, twirling, twisting, and shimmering before it fell in watery waves over the crowd.
It was Saturday, May 17, the day before the anniversary of Morelia's founding in 1541, and a jubilant anticipation had electrified downtown all afternoon. Crowds collected on bleachers along Avenida Madero several hours before the parade, and a stage blocked the major thoroughfare at the intersection of Calle Abasalo where Raul D'Blasio, an Argentine pianist, would perform at the conclusion of the event.
Two small boys who would soon don their Viejito masks played with a gray Schnauzer in Plaza Presidente Juarez on the west side of the cathedral, while a young man in sunglasses and an earring played vociferously on a guitar and a teenager dressed in traditional cotton garb strummed a cello. One of the boys, still without a mask, clasped his hands behind his back and did a brief jig past the musicians. Cathedral bells rang during a lull in the violin and cello and the imposing piped-in music from the stage, while fountains caressed the afternoon breeze with a kiss of tranquility.
Down Calle San Augustin between Plaza Presidente Juarez and Templo de San Augustin, vendors had set up tables where they sold bags of coconut chunks and potato chips, mangos mounted on sticks and sliced to resemble flowers; pistachios and peanuts and pumpkin seeds; empanadas; nieves de pasta from Patzcuaro. A woman waved mischievous insects away from a table covered with cajeta, strawberry, and milk empanadas, a little girl carefully wrapped a napkin around her cup of vanilla ice cream; the older young lady in front of her purchased a bag of chicharrones with onions, cilantro, tomatoes and lime juice. A woman in a green plaid bib over her voluptuous blue dress leaned over a bowl as she carved corn from a cob.
A young man draped his arm across the shoulders of his mother who wore a tired scarf as they passed watercolors of the cathedral and aqueducts while eager horn music slid across the plaza. A man munching on chunks of coconut with his hat pulled low over his eyes stops to look at a series of paintings that seduce passersby to create their own stories; women strolling away from the viewer down ill-defined walkways, a man embracing a cello and turning his back; a robust fellow sitting with his wheeled cart. You can't see their faces. You wonder what the fellow is selling, what the musician will play, where the women are going.
Next to the cathedral, young dancers in rippling dresses of cobalt blue, lime green, and magenta performed to the "Mexican Hat Dance" and "Guadalajara" with partners in broad sombreros and red sashes around black trousers and white cotton shirts. Kandumba in Plaza Presidente Juarez delivered another one of its hypnotic performances.
At Cafe Europa a few blocks down the street, a man cradled a sleeping baby while the mother folded an embroidered napkin and two girls fidgeted around the table. A teenage couple sat pouring over some books next to two empty plastic containers filled with crumpled napkins. Outside, a man rode a yellow motor scooter up the street, the only vehicle along the thoroughfare now closed off for the parade.
A group of grinning young men in their late teens and early 20s walked up the street chanting and punching their fists in the air. The temperamental flounces of a woman's peach-colored dress flipped nervously around her legs as she rushed by; a girl with spiderweb stockings on her arms, the image of a rib cage on her black shirt, and two lip piercings walked by with her mother and two brothers. A man with a load of cotton candy suspended from a pole over his shoulder strolled past a man spinning an organ grinder, the whimsical, confectionary tunes showering the air with a sort of musical glitter. The bleachers now full, people now took their places on the curb.
As sunlight vacated the city, crowds filled any remaining spaces downtown like paint pouring into the interstices of a canvas. A Cher concert played on large screens mounted on the black iron fence in front of the cathedral. Green light scintillated across the facade, whistles and oohs and aahs frequently erupted from the restless crowd that leaned against the rails as an announcer gave a brief history of Morelia's founding. A girl of about 14, with a microscopic piece of jewelry glittering in her nose, laughed with her mother and older friend who chewed vigorously on a piece of gum. A woman with light copper flourishes in her permed hair, and gracious eyes planted deep within her aging cheeks gestured eagerly with her hands as she spoke to a friend. A teenage girl wore a shirt with the words, "La La La I Can't Hear You La La La."
A young girl in pig tails stepped through the rails into the street to check on the progress of the parade but didn't appear to see anything. Then, realizing this section of the street had replaced the Cher concert on the screen in front of her, delight seemed to awaken her eyes as a smile slipped away from her nose, invoking an appearance of demure innocence. She ran back out and did a little jig to see herself, kicking out her legs, flapping her arms, laughing with glee, quickly followed by other children eager for their own few minutes of fame.
Finally the parade arrived, a cavalcade of cavorting dancers, horses, carriages, and esteemed personages. A couple in extravagantly feathered hats sweeping behind them and willowy costumes fluttering in the night air floated astride a vehicle, followed immediately by a second conveyance with men in black habits standing over a native carving something in stone. Women with rebozos falling over their cotton dresses danced before a young man dressed in black and standing atop a float. Wearing a distinctive red Jose Maria Morelos cap, he looked sternly over the crowd from behind desk.
Music pounded the night and a little girl on a woman's shoulders put her hands to her ears. Red, white, and green flags rose up and down in rhythm to the music behind Morelos. Fireworks bolted from the ground, lavender and orange showers leaping from the sky moments later. The moon caressed the black sky between the cathedral towers; turbulent fire vibrated in the windows, rapturous music throttled the air - drums, synthesized music, crystallized keyboards enthralled downtown. Towering jesters on stilts floated by, a machine sent soap bubbles flittering over the crowd, dancers with glittered faces danced and clapped to the music.
Finally, the parade ended, and Raul D'Blasio stepped onto the titanic stage and charmed the audience with his endearing humor and powerful piano performance, his image projected onto a large screen. Several times people farther down the street chanted "No se oyen! No se oyen!" because they couldn't hear him, but it had been a beautiful night, and nothing could contaminate the feeling of enchantment and peace that emanated from the timeless structures ranging up and down the avenues of the old city. This day of thanksgiving for Morelia's long life had concluded with the hope of many more years to come.
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