La Jornada: Diamond Revolution will premiere in Fine Arts

diamond revolutiona work by composer Gabriela Ortiz, inspired by the historic feminist protests in Mexico City in 2019 and awarded three Grammy Awards and a Latin Grammy, will premiere in Latin America this weekend in the main hall of the Palacio de Bellas Artes.

Unlike presentations in Los Angeles, Boston and Berlin, here it will have a choreography that will bring 12 dancers and one male dancer to the stage. The proposal was defined by its creators as “a political act” that seeks to rethink the way in which women and men relate to these problems.

“This presentation is a firm step to revalue the feminine gaze not only from the perspective of women, but also from the feminine gaze of men,” said Cecilia Lugo, artistic director of the Contemporary Dance Production Center (Ceprodac) of the National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature (Inbal).

Marisa Canales, flutist and general director of the Urtext Digital Classics record label, added that it is about representing what we live: a sad and ancient issue such as gender violence and feminicide.

“It is not necessarily a criticism; it is confirming a reality and taking it to another level, where there is no controversy, but rather the intention of touching the most intimate part of our emotions.”

“A braid”

Claudia Lavista, in charge of the choreography along with Lola Lince and Melva Olivas, commented that she conceived the montage as “a braiding” in which the poetic language created for the work, body movement and various feminist investigations focused on concepts such as sisterhood converge.

The choreography took as its starting point Ortiz’s score, divided into six scenes, and Cristina Rivera Garza’s script. From there, philosophical reflections and different feminist currents were incorporated to build the scenic framework.

“Each scene has different symbolic elements; for example, stone as what we are born with in a patriarchal and sexist society, and that we are going to use to build other types of structures,” Lavista explained about this co-production of Urtext Digital Classics and Inbal.

Other elements present in the choreography are blood, linked both to menstruation and to missing or murdered women; the braid, which represents solidarity and the desire to weave a different society, and the totem, associated with beliefs that we do not always want to discuss.

Lavista pointed out that the biggest challenge in this project was integrating a dramaturgy from bodies, symbols and poetic signs. “The first thing was to listen to the music and make it personal, then it was to talk about these topics with a specific poetics based on signs and symbols, without falling into literalism or obviousness.”

Under the direction of Lina González-Granados, the Urtext Orchestra, members of Ceprodac and a choir of six soloists, diamond revolution It will be presented on Saturday at 7 p.m. and Sunday at 5 p.m.

The performances would mark Gabriela Ortiz’s first encounter with the complete production. The composer is abroad and so far has only seen a few video fragments, to which she has reacted with enthusiasm.