Paren el mundo que nos queremos bajar...
“Stop the world, we want to get off!” reads the busy green invitation to El Forito Nomada’s weekend festival of art, music, clowns, theater, film, and poetry at EDELO Residencia in San Cristóbal de las Casas. Whatever your pleasure, the packed three-page invite promises you’ll be pleased. I’m excited. And, though EDELO has a bit of competition this fin de semana—El Paliacate’s first anniversary celebration, a reggaeton fest at Hollywood Bar, and a popular education forum at La Albarrada—when I arrive on Friday evening, September 3rd, the place is as packed as the invitation and people are spilling into the street.
El Forito Nomada, or, The Nomadic Forum, is a youth art collective from Tuxtla Gutiérrez that hit the road 9 months ago to bring art to the people of Chiapas—off the gallery map. “Young people aren’t apathetic,” Luis Enrique Moscoso, one of the Forito’s founders, tells me on Saturday evening after a hilarious and impactful performance of “The Vagina Monologues” by the Tuxtla theater group Fata Morgana. “We are active in our own way.” El Forito was born out of a desire to give young artists a space to express themselves while deconstructing the world around them, as Moscoso puts, in “[their] own way.” And they couldn’t have picked a better spot in San Cristóbal to do it.
EDELO Casa de Arte en Movimiento y Residencia Internacional de Diversas Practicas (EDELO House of Art in Motion and International Residency of Diverse Practices) developed with groups like El Forito in mind, as a reaction to a dwindling number of public spaces open for cultural expression. And, when they say “diverse practices,” they mean it. In addition to the “traditional” arts fare of visual art, music, theater, film, poetry, and dance, EDELO is also home to gardeners, healers, psychiatrists, farmers, and inventors—I was delighted to hear of their burgeoning green roof project. (Imagine the lush green San Cristóbal cityscape we will have when their idea catches on!) In addition to local groups like El Forito Nomada, every month EDELO hosts artists from all over the world, who teach workshops on everything from contemporary dance to Circus performance to alternative technology.
True to EDELO tradition, this weekend’s events are quite diverse. I pick my poisons on Friday afternoon—a Chiapanecan art exhibition, a poetry reading, and a play—though I wish I could just camp out on EDELO’s floor for the full three days. (Something tells me it isn’t an impossible dream.) The art and poetry take place on Friday evening and, when I enter the space, I am greeted by luscious low lighting and a little music inviting me into the gallery in back. El Forito has gathered an exquisite mix of painting, graphics, and photography and my eye is immediately drawn to the words stenciled on the lefthand wall, “Art as a substitute for political action.” Looks like I’m in the right place.
I spend time in front of every piece, but I am especially interested in a photographic series entitled “Cuidadito y me tocas” which features images of young women in various positions of strength and self-defense, taken by the artist, Daniel Mantz, as “a cry of powerlessness in the face of the severe state of violence against women.” Afterwards, I ask Luis Enrique Moscoso if El Forito intended for the exposition to have a sociopolitical message. “Everything is social,” he responds matter-of-factly. “You can’t make art without being social.” I second that.
Onto the poetry reading, which I catch just in time for Fabian Aguilar, in the intimate living room space just past EDELO’s open garage doors. The English speaker in me strains to envision each verse and I fall into somewhat of a meditative trance. “Hoy quiero creer en dios,” (Today I want to believe in God) he reads solemnly and, once again, I am conscious—with tons of new ideas for Poetry Tuesday!)
When I return the next evening for Fata Morgana’s staging of “The Vagina Monologues,” the light is still lusciously low and the space is still full, perhaps moreso. I grab a space in the back, near the open door, which, if you ask me, plays a pivotal part in the performance. The purpose of “The Vagina Monologues,” in part, is to demystify and destigmatize the word “vagina,” an objective that is partially fulfilled by EDELO’s open doors. I am in the perfect place to watch passersby, most of whom are startled to hear the word “vagina” being proudly sung by the five beautiful women inside. But what’s done is done—the word “vagina” is now that much more public. And, for the first few minutes, even the audience members are shifting in their seats, as if we all weren’t really here for an hourful of vaginas. Then, actress Anna Lucia Jimenez Dominguez takes the stage with “La mujer a la que le encantaba hacer felices a las vaginas” (The woman who loved to make vaginas happy) and its side-splitting series of mimicked moans. We are laughing—hard—and looking at each other with knowing eyes. “That sounds familiar!” We say to each other without saying it. Now we are talking vaginas.
Tuxtla theater group Fata Morgana performs "The Vagina Monologues" at EDELO
After the show, I head straight for Anna Lucia to congratulate her on her performance: “You turned the whole show around.” I gush and she gracefully accepts my compliment—we chat about the play, her monologue, and what’s next for Fata Morgana. In a small way, EDELO and El Forito Nomada have accomplished their mission tonight, as two young people (strangers before tonight) discuss performance, sexuality, and culture in the space’s crowded hallway.
On Sunday afternoon, I swing by EDELO to thank El Forito’s clan of nomads for a moving and enriching weekend. They are celebrating. (They deserve it.) The weekend was a hit. “This morning, we had clowns at la catedral.” They say. “There were kids everywhere!” And I’m sorry I missed it. That, and the music and film screenings I also couldn’t manage to make. (Unfortunately, the world doesn’t stop to let people off, even when you ask as politely and artistically as El Forito Nomada.) Tonight, Sunday, September 5th, after three days of dialogue and expression, El Forito will travel back to Tuxtla, EDELO will close its doors for a month-long sabbatical, and I will walk home, thinking about nomads, clowns, and vaginas. Not a bad way to end a weekend.
