DANZOCALO

DANZOCALO
Ximena Labra 2010 .
Public Space project.
Vivelatino rock festival.
Stage 12m x 8 x 6 m.
Photos: 1.20x 80 cm
Outfits: variable sizes

Danzócalo shifts its staging to the theater of farce. It involves the mise-en-scène of a series of characters or motifs that occupy or have at some point occupied the imaginary of violence in Mexican society in recent years: from pre-Hispanic deities like Tezcatlipoca-Quetzalcóatl to actors whose costumes range from tanks with legs, (used to dissolve human bodies by the mafia) to El Chapo Guzmán, the Gober Precioso [Mario Marín], the bust of Benito Juárez, or simply headless bodies dancing. This motley Mexican tragicomedy is a sort of mise-en-scène of a horrific version of Tiny Toons Entertainment. Instead of attempting to generate a reflexive or critical consciousness of the problems that have beset Mexican society for almost two decades, the farsical key of this comedy acts to caricature this problematic. The artist's action aims more for cathartic identification by way of laughter.

José Luis Barrios.
Excerpt from Ximena Labra or the Laughter of Dionysus
from the book Ximena Labra Espacio Público/Public Space