Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T12:04:08.499Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Dancing the Pluriverse: Indigenous Performance as Ontological Praxis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 April 2016

María Regina Firmino Castillo
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article discusses ways that Indigenous dance is an ontological praxis that is embodied and telluric, meaning “of the earth.” It looks at how dancing bodies perform in relationship to ecosystems and entities within them, producing ontological distinctions and hierarchies that are often imbued with power. This makes dance a site of ontological struggle that potentially challenges the delusional ontological universality undergirding imperialism, genocide, and ecocide. The author explores these theoretical propositions through her participation in Oxlaval Q'anil, an emerging Ixil Maya dance project in Guatemala, and Dancing Earth, an itinerant and inter-tribal U.S.-based company founded by Rulan Tangen eleven years ago.

Keywords

Decolonizationdiasporic IndigeneityembodimentIndigenous danceIxil Mayaontologyperformance studiespluriverse
Type
Articles
Information
Dance Research Journal , Volume 48 , Issue 1: Indigenous Dance Today , April 2016 , pp. 55 - 73
Copyright
Copyright © Congress on Research in Dance 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Archibald, Jo-Ann. 2008. Indigenous Storywork: Educating the Heart, Mind, Body, and Spirit. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Avendaño, Lukas. 2015. Facebook post, accessed November 8, 2015. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10206675518758607&set=a1060968696437.11532.1592541818&type=3&theater 2015.Google Scholar
Ball, Patrick. 1999. AAAS/CIIDH database of human rights violations in Guatemala (ATV20.1). https://hrdag.org/guatemala-ciidh-data/.Google Scholar
Barrios, Lina E. 1996. Alcaldía Indígena en la Época Colonial. Ciudad de Guatemala, Guatemala: Universidad Rafael Landívar, Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas y Sociales.Google Scholar
Blaser, Mario. 2009. “Political Ontology.” Cultural Studies 23(5–6): 873–896.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blaser, Mario. 2010. Storytelling Globalization from the Chaco and Beyond. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Blaser, Mario. 2013. “Ontological Conflicts and the Stories of Peoples in Spite of Europe: Toward a Conversation on Political Ontology.” Current Anthropology 54(5): 547–568.Google Scholar
Burkhart, Brian. 2001. “What Coyote and Thales Can Teach Us: An Outline of American Indian Epistemology.” In American Indian Thought: Philosophical Essays, edited by Waters, Anne, 26–36. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Cajete, Gregory. 2000. Native Science: Natural Laws of Interdependence. Santa Fe, NM: Clear Light.Google Scholar
Carmack, Robert M. [1982] 2001. Evolución del reino K'iche’. Ciudad de Guatemala, Guatemala: Cholsamaj.Google Scholar
Comisión para el Esclarecimiento Histórico 1999. Guatemala, Memoria del Silencio. Ciudad de Guatemala, Guatemala: Oficina de Servicios para Proyectos de las Naciones Unidas.Google Scholar
Conquergood, Dwight. 2002. “Performance Studies Interventions and Radical Research.” The Drama Review 46(2) (T174): 145–156.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cruz Banks, Ojeya. 2010. “Of Water and Spirit: Locating Dance Epistemologies in Aotearoa/New Zealand and Senegal.” Anthropological Notebooks of Slovene Anthropological Society 16(3): 9–22.Google Scholar
de la Cadena, Marisol 2010. “Indigenous Cosmopolitics in the Andes: Conceptual Reflections Beyond ‘Politics.’” Cultural Anthropology 25(2): 334–370.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DeMallie, Raymond. 2008. Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux, The Premier Edition. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.Google Scholar
Fanon, Frantz. (1952) 2000. “The Fact of Blackness.” Translated by Markmann, Charles Lam. In Theories of Race and Racism: A Reader, edited by Back, Les and Solomos, John, 257–265. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Firmino Castillo, María Regina, Maxho'l (Lalo Velasco Ceto), Bernal, Tohil Brito, and Matom, Xhas (Jacinto Brito). 2014. Uma'l Iq’: Tiempo y Espacio Maya Ixil. Ciudad de Guatemala, Guatemala: Cholsamaj.Google Scholar
Forensic Architecture 2012. The Earth Scorched: Environmental Violence and Genocide in the Ixil Triangle, Guatemala, 1980–1983. http://guatemala.situplatform.com/.Google Scholar
Fundación Ixil 2010. Informe de Diagnóstico: Descripción de la Situación del Área Ixil a partir de la revisión de documentos y diagnósticos identificados. El Quiché, Guatemala: Fundación Ixil. http://limitlesshorizonsixil.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Informe-de-Diagnostico-de-Documentos-Fundacion-Ixil.pdf.Google Scholar
Galeano, Eduardo H. 2010. Ser como ellos y otros artículos. Madrid: Siglo XXI de España.Google Scholar
Garay Herrera, Alejandro. 2013. “Arqueología y Tradición Oral en el Área Ixil.” In Cosecha de Memoria: La Memoria Histórica Cultural de la Sociedad Ixil, edited by Galeotti, Rodolfo González, 37–55. Ciudad de Guatemala, Guatemala: ADESCA / Aporte para la Descentralización Cultural.Google Scholar
Gareau, Frederick Henry. 2004. State Terrorism and the United States: From Counterinsurgency to the War on Terrorism. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Grand, Ian. 1978. “The Marvelous in the Real.” Journal of Biological Experience: Studies in the Life of the Body 1(2): 33–43.Google Scholar
Hale, Charles R. 2002. “Does Multiculturalism Menace? Governance, Cultural Rights and the Politics of Identity in Guatemala.” Journal of Latin American Studies 34(3): 485–524.Google Scholar
Hazen-Hammond, Susan, 1988. A Short History of Santa Fe. San Francisco: Lexikos.Google Scholar
León-Portilla, Miguel, and Galeana, L. Silva 1991. Huehuehtlahtolli. Testimonios De La Antigua Palabra. Ciudad de México, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica.Google Scholar
Mignolo, Walter 2013. “On Pluriversality.” Walter Mignolo. http://waltermignolo.com/on-pluriversality/.Google Scholar
Morales, Mario R. 2009. “Hacia una teoría del mestizaje intercultural diferenciado.” Revista Iberoamericana 20(2): 221–251. http://snuilas.snu.ac.kr/iberopdf/snuibero200209.pdf.Google Scholar
Morales, Surami. 2013. “En tres meses suman 15 suicidios en Nebaj.” Siglo 21 December 7. http://ww.s21.com.gt/nacionales/2013/12/07/tres-meses-suman-15-suicidios-nebaj.Google Scholar
Morton, Timothy. 2013 Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Navarrete, Carlos. 1971. “Prohibicion de la danza del tigre.” Tlalocan VI(4): 374–376. http://www.iifilologicas.unam.mx/tlalocan/uploads/Volumenes/Tlalocan_VI/Tlalocan_VI-4/06-Navarrete_VI-4.pdf.Google Scholar
wa Thiong'o, Ngugi. 1994. Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature. Nairobi, Kenya: East African.Google Scholar
Oliveira Filho, João. 1998. “Uma etnologia dos ‘índios misturados’? Situação colonial, territorialização e fluxos culturais.” MANA 4(1): 47–77.Google Scholar
Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. 2014. “In Sombre Depiction of Indigenous Children Caught in Bitter Land Disputes, Speakers in Permanent Forum Describe Myriad Threats, Urge Solutions.” Thirteenth Session, 8th Meeting. May 16, 2014. http://www.un.org/press/en/2014/hr5182.doc.htm.Google Scholar
Plumwood, Val. 1993. Feminism and the Mastery of Nature. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Recinos, Adrián 1947. Popol Vuh: Las Antiguas Historias del Quiché. Ciudad de México, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica.Google Scholar
Sam Colop, Luis Enrique. 2011. Popol Wuj. Ciudad de Guatemala, Guatemala: F & G Editores.Google Scholar
Sara, Rachel, and Alice, Sara. 2015 “Between Dance and Architecture.” In Moving Sites: Investigating Site-Specific Dance Performance, edited by Hunter, Victoria, 62–78. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scolieri, Paul A. 2013. Dancing the New World: Aztecs, Spaniards, and the Choreography of Conquest. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Shea Murphy, Jacqueline. 2007. “The People Have Never Stopped Dancing”: Native American Modern Dance Histories. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Sten, Maria 1990. Ponte a Bailar, Tu que Reinas: Antropologia de la Danza Prehispanica. Ciudad de México, México: Editorial Joaquin Mortiz.Google Scholar
Stoler, Ann. 2009. Along the Archival Grain: Epistemic Anxieties and Colonial Common Sense. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, Diana. 2003. The Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Tiedje, Kristina. 2008. “Curación y Maleficio entre los Nahuas Potosinos.” In Curanderos y Medicina Tradicional en la Huasteca, edited by Arias, Patricia Gallardo, 17–54. Ciudad de México, México: Ediciones del Programa de Desarrollo Cultural de la Huasteca.Google Scholar
Úpun Sipac, Damián. 2007. Maya’ Ajilab'al Q'ij. Ciudad de Guatemala, Guatemala: Cholsamaj.Google Scholar
Waziyatawin, , and Bird, Yellow, Michael, . 2005. “Decolonizing Our Minds And Actions.” In For Indigenous Minds Only: A Decolonization Handbook, edited by Bird, Michael Yellow, 1–14. Santa Fe, NM: School of Advanced Research Press.Google Scholar
Wilson, Shawn. 2008. Research Is Ceremony: Indigenous Research Methods. Black Point, Nova Scotia: Fernwood.Google Scholar
Woolford, Andrew. 2009. “Ontological Destruction: Genocide and Canadian Aboriginal Peoples.” Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal 4(1): 81–97. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/gsp/vol4/iss1/6.Google Scholar