ARTE MIGRANTE | MIGRANT ARTS PROJECT
For thousands of years, Indigenous peoples of the Anahuac have migrated and danced through ancestral territories that are now divided by an international border. The Dance of the Deer of the Yoreme people (also known as Yaqui) is found to this day in Sonora, Mexico and Arizona as a vibrant illustration of cultural resilience and connection. - Notes from SEYEWAILO RESEARCH IN MOTION: Dance of the Deer as Indigenous Resistance Across the U.S./ Mexico Border by Rodrigo Esteva, MFA in Dance
As a bi-cultural (SF Bay Area/Mexico City) dance company working across borders, our artwork is embedded in ongoing creative practices of community-responsive listening and exchange in both Mexico and the US. After 25 years of dedication as DANCE MONKS (Est.1999), developing practices related to the mythologies held in the body and the land, we are now envisioning sanctuaries for creative expression and the healing arts as bridges of care between the two countries.
Currently, through Arte Migrante/ The Migrant Arts Project, our vision is inspired by decolonized Indigenous practices of community organizing to incubate international spaces for gathering, creative expression, healing/care/empowerment, and dance/interdisciplinary art making focused on displaced bodies of the Mexican diaspora. As part of this project, we will offer seasonal farmworkers and migrant families (in the Bay Area and San Antonio) free art and culturally relevant healing services in response to their expressed needs. We are also planning our first Arte Migrante Summer program in Brentwood, CA, an interdisciplinary arts camp free for elementary-aged children of farmworkers in partnership with Hijas del Campo, an organization dedicated to supporting Campesinx families.
Looking ahead, we envision establishing small community milpas (traditional Mexican food-growing areas ) and Tianguis (markets) to foster economic resilience in underserved communities and multilingual migrant libraries with a focus on books in Spanish and Indigenous languages. Arte Migrante| The Migrant Arts Project returns to some of the questions that we were asking in past works, Tlaoli: People of the Corn (2016) and Breathe Here: Respira Aqui (2023) about migration, vulnerability/exploitation, cultural displacement, and amnesia, while working with the arts and traditional healing practices to spark needed change. Arte Migrante honors immigrants' vital contributions while providing needed spaces to rest and dream, recover ancestral memory, and ignite the renewal of sacred ways of being and relating to the body and the land. During times of environmental and social crisis, it is essential to listen to the wise voices of those who have not been traditionally heard or have been overlooked and whose cultures hold vital knowledge for these times.
CALL TO ACTION!
YOUR SUPPORT MAKES A DIFFERENCE
Your support is vital towards funding essential needs like providing free acupressure for farmworkers, paying teachers for the free summer arts camp, supplying books for our mobile library serving migrant families, and purchasing art supplies. It also covers rehearsal spaces and compensates artists for performances in public libraries and underserved schools in California, Texas and Oaxaca.
Join us in making a meaningful impact today.
UPCOMING RESIDENCIES
SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER, 2024: Bay Area, CA
Ongoing/ year-round: Offering FREE weekly Acupressure for local Indigenx and Latinx farmworkers at Berkeley Farmers' Market (2006-present), Avalos Farms, Golden Rule Farm, and in partnership with Hijas del Campo
NOVEMBER: San Antonio, TX
Arte Migrante| Migrant Arts residency with local migrant families and public altar/installation of Querida Carmelita for Dia de los Muertos
JANUARY-MARCH, 2025: Oaxaca, Mexico
Creative Residency for Mayahuel, a new interdisciplinary performance based on Mexican mythology and Workshops with curanderas of the Nuu Saavi (Mixteca), People of the Rain, and Ben 'Zaa (Zapoteca), People of the Clouds
APRIL-JUNE: Bay Area, CA
Performance residencies of Mayahuel, Preparations for Festival de Arte Migrante /Migrant Arts Summer program in partnership with Hijas del Campo
JULY: Brentwood, California
FREE Arte Migrante Summer Arts program for elementary-aged children of migrant and seasonal farmworkers in partnership with Hijas del Campo
Photograph: Efren Avalos of Avalos Farms,
DANCE MONKS partner since 2006
PUBLIC PERFORMANCES
In November 2024, as part of the Arte Migrante | Migrant Arts residency, DANCE MONKS is planning a public installation of Querida Carmelita for Dia de los Muertos to honor migrant families.
In the Winter of 2025, DANCE MONKS will be in creative residency in Oaxaca, Mexico for the making of Mayahual, a new interdisciplinary performance based on Mexican mythology. This performance will be presented in public schools and libraries in both the US and Mexico. Additionally, they will be taking workshops with curanderas from Rodrigo's familial heritage of the Nuu Saavi (Mixteca), People of the Rain, and Ben 'Zaa (Zapoteca), People of the Clouds.
MUCHAS GRACIAS TO OUR PARTNERS:
