Lemniskata
An abstract backdrop with enormous frames strung with ropes, sound design composed for pre-colonial instruments, and a strong collective choreography make the first large-scale dance piece by the Mexican artist Lukas Avendaño a poetic journey.
Festival Holland Festival
Duur 60 minutes, no intermission
Genre Dance
Language Language no problem
Fourteen dancers and one actress imagine the origins of all life on the basis of feminine symbolism from Mexican culture. Drawing on the symbol of the snake that gives birth to itself, the ‘lemniscate’, symbol of infinity, Avendaño has created a tribute to femininity as well as to the queer muxe community in Mexico.
Muxes are also called the ‘third gender’. They play a complex social role in Zapotec culture. These are men with feminine values and behaviours, contrasting with Mexican male machismo. -|-Avendaño has created a reflection on this muxe community, their sexuality, eroticism and the tension surrounding it. LEMNISKATA
shows humans in all their nakedness and vulnerability while at the same time being a work of feminine resistance against a world dominated by violence and exploitation.
Avendaño: ‘Just as this piece is a tribute to femininity, it of course also comprises an implicit tribute to this (muxe) community, which is stigmatised in many contexts.’
Credits
choreography Lukas Avendaño
direction Lukas Avendaño, Rosario Ordoñez
dance Natalia Martínez Mejía, Abdiel Villaseñor, Edgar Pol, Víctor Villasana, Leo Vara, Emmanuelle Sanders, Omar Santiesteban, Oswaldo (Wacho) Gómez, Ramón García, Hazael Sánchez Rangel, Víctor Hugo Loaiza, Víctor Gil Méndez, César López, Milton Uriel Onofre Vázquez, Erick Dachill
dramaturgy Barbara Muñoz de Cote, Ismael Rodríguez
light design Enrique Morales “Chester”
original music Tecuexe Band
composition Javier López López, Diego Martínez Guillén
design and creation of masks Jesús Ramírez
costumes Carolina Jiménez
photography Alejandra Leyva, Jaime Martin, Nación Imago
illustrations Julio María
guest musicians Abel Jarero, Juan Jarero y Miguel Jarero (Chirimía Cruz Blanca de Tonalá)
vocal training Emmanuelle Sanders
general and artistic director Eleno Guzmán Gutiérrez Verónica Rimada Diz, Eric Lomeli, Erick Pichardo, José Vega, Ivan Tellez
producer Saúl Alejandro Gaxiola Martínez
tour manager and logistics Rodrigo del Ángel Muñóz
-|-
graphic design Carlos Humberto Vázquez Cortés
management assistant Arianna Suárez
administration assistant Michel D'yanin Galindo Gómez
set construction Enrique Rodriguez
associate set design Juan Luis Caballero Franco
transport Carlos Terrones
production MOVES México
coproduction Conjunto Santander de Artes Escénicas, Cultura UDG, Kampnagel
musical credits
live performance by Chirimía Cruz Blanca of Música de pasión, La caminata de los tastoanes (La Remasca)
extract original sound piece Matrix (2021) by Ismael Rodríguez
production Diego de la Mora
postproduction SUPLEX Studio / Diego Martínez
instrumentalists Alma Cano, Cristina Cano, Melisa Cano, Juan Cano, Lucero Casillas, Vanesa Casillas, Rocío López, Xochitl López, Israel Martínez, Cyané Quijano and Mauricio Vega
recording by Suplex Studio in Acatic, Mexico. April 2022
special thanks
We deeply thank all the people from the municipalities of the state of Jalisco in México: Tonalá, Tuxpan, Mezcala, Acatic, Zapotlán el Grande, Teuchitlan and Amatitán, who accompanied us in the emergence of the origin of this project with shared wisdom through their customs, traditions, crafts and stories that were forging the symbolic framework of LEMNISKATA.
ABOUT HOLLAND FESTIVAL
The Holland Festival is the largest international performing arts festival in the Netherlands and one of the oldest festivals in Europe. Founded in 1947, Holland Festival celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2022.
The festival takes place every June, in and around Amsterdam at various locations, indoors and outdoors, large-scale and intimate, online and offline.