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APAPACHO

Apapacho is a Nahuatl word that means a gesture of care

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 

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 APAPACHO, our vision is inspired by Folk and Indigenous practices of community organizing to create 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 offer farmworkers and migrant families (in the Bay Area and Oaxaca) art and culturally relevant healing services and training through our free programs.   ​​  

 

Looking ahead, we envision establishing small community milpas (traditional Mexican farming plots) and Tianguis (markets) to foster economic resilience in underserved communities and multilingual migrant libraries with a focus on books in Spanish and Indigenous languages.  APAPACHO 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.

 

APAPACHO 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.  ​

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CALENDAR & PUBLIC EVENTS

Last updated: 1/11/25

     

JUNE-DECEMBER, 2024: Bay Area, CA 

 

APAPACHO: FREE ACUPRESSURE & WORKSHOPS for local Indigenx/ Mexican farmworkers at Berkeley Farmers' Market and in partnership

with Hijas del Campo

CREATIVE RESIDENCY AT BERKELEY BALLET: Rehearsals and embodied research, including gathering remedies and stories from local farmworkers for upcoming Performance Installation 

   ​​​

JANUARY-MAY, 2025: Oaxaca, Mexico

CREATIVE RESIDENCY for a new interdisciplinary performance of APAPACHO based on farmworkers' stories, remedies and Mexican mythology

 

SKILL SHARING WORKSHOPS with weavers and curanderas of the Nuu Saavi (Mixteca), People of the Rain, and Ben 'Zaa (Zapoteca), People of the Clouds 

APAPACHO: FREE HANDS-ON-HEALING, performances, and workshops for campesino and migrant families in Oaxaca through local shelters and community centers 

FEBRUARY, 2025: Oaxaca, Mexico

Adivinación en Movimiento: Workshop open to the public at NECIA: Nuestro Espacio de Creación Íntima y Autónoma  | Register HERE 

 

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CALL TO ACTION

YOUR SUPPORT MAKES A DIFFERENCE

Your support is vital towards funding essential needs like providing free acupressure for farmworkers, supplying books for our mobile library serving families, and purchasing art supplies. It also covers rehearsal spaces and compensates artists for performances for children in transit in California and Oaxaca.

 

Join us in making a meaningful impact today. 

MUCHAS GRACIAS TO OUR PARTNERS:

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