La Jornada: Guillermo Arriaga made dance his language; They will celebrate their birth centenary

Guillermo Arriaga Fernández (1926-2014) wrote with the body. In 300 works he expressed what he thought and felt, making dance his language. July 4 marked 100 years since his birth, and his legacy will be remembered today in the Manuel M. Ponce room of the Palace of Fine Arts in a reflection table with the participation of the researcher Margarita Tortajada, the teacher Carmen Correa and the choreographer Rodrigo González.

On the occasion of the centenary of the artist who marked the transition from modern to contemporary dance in the country, the federal Ministry of Culture (SC) announced that commemorative activities will be carried out, including a documentary exhibition as part of the 48th Guillermo Arriaga National Dance Award, Inbal-UAM Contemporary Choreographic Creation Contest; the reassembly of Zapata, with the National Dance Company, during the final of the contest, on September 1st; the publication in November of a book on the history of the award, and the incorporation of its collection to the new digital repository of the National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature (Inbal).

According to the institution, the Guillermo Arriaga Fernández Documentary Fund is one of the most important collections of Mexican dance, housing 18,600 documents. The archive also reveals his musical side, since the maestro composed around 2 thousand songs, many of which are unpublished. One of the few that reached the public was How will I understand, performed by Camilo Sesto in the 70s.

The exhibition, which is scheduled to open in September at the Teatro de la Danza, will bring together documents, photographs, hand programs, sketches, manuscripts and unpublished pieces from the collection. It will be divided into six thematic axes: childhood, youth and maturity; beginnings in dance; choreographic works; Zapata, a milestone in Mexican dance; official and cultural promoter, and other facets, a section that will allow us to get closer to his work as a composer and writer.

Regarding the centenary of the artist’s birth, choreographer Rodrigo González shared with The Day: “Arriaga was an exceptional creator. He had enormous human quality, a lot of charisma and a vast culture. He was a man of daily work. With him I saw that creativity is not exhausted: it is transformed. If he didn’t write a story, he remembered a song he composed, reviewed videos, studied or read. He was always thinking about what else to do.”

He added that Arriaga Fernández was an inveterate music lover and accumulated a large collection of music, books and documents. “He was obsessive with the order of his files. He went from devedé to emepé3, from digital to hard drives and external memories. He always sought to ensure that his material was preserved and kept current.”

Regarding his choreographic language, Rodrigo González explained: “He came from the theater and had a very extensive background. He knew Mexican art in depth: he was a close friend of Guadalupe Rivera Marín, Ruth Rivera and the Coronel group. This crossing with other disciplines gave another character, another content and another expressiveness to his dance. He nourished his work in a different way than other creators.

“He knew José Limón closely and was a close disciple of Waldeen and other choreographer influences when he went to the United States. He was also with Merce Cunningham in Paris. His knowledge of Mexican folklore, his research, his rescues, all of that made for a very particular universe and his own movement. It was the combination of intelligence, charisma and ability to visualize, project and conceptualize structures, which gave such specific features to his choreographic work. And he did not stop moving: he exercised every day, even if it was lying in bed, sitting in a chair or in the dining room.”

González recalled that Arriaga’s last work, Soy, He created it in the living room of his house. “He showed movements, he asked the dancer for them and that’s how he put it together until he finished it. We premiered it in Japan and it went very well. It’s a beautiful piece, like a retrospective.”

For Rodrigo González the piece that defines Arriaga is Zapata. “It is his emblematic work, the one that marked his choreographic history and Mexican dance. It closes the modern era and inaugurates the contemporary. The maestro was interested in social themes: denunciation, protest, confrontation with the system. Zapata is the example, but he also did other protesting works that sought to generate cracks in thought.”

In González’s opinion, the teacher left knowledge and legacy to those who followed his path. He is responsible for the founding of the Mexican Ballet, the Popular Ballet of Mexico, the Social Security Mexican Folkloric Ensemble and the Mexican Contemporary Dance Company, as well as the José Limón National Research Center for Dance.

His most representative works are The dream and the presence (1951), The magic ballad (1952), Zapata (1953), Cuauhtemoc (1954) y The reception of the Olympic fire in Teotihuacan (1968).

The reflection table Guillermo Arriaga Centenary It will be held today at 12 noon in the Manuel M. Ponce room of the Palacio de Bellas Artes (Juárez Avenue and Eje Central Lázaro Cárdenas).