MICTLAN

2011
Foro Sol, Mexico City
Mirror Pyramid 10 m x 10 m x 8 m
Dance Floor: 15 m x 10 m
Photographs: 1.20 m x 80 cm
Video: 5:50 min.
Mictlantehcutli: Andrés Loewe
Huitzilopochtli: Lino Nava
Xipe Totec: Tania Amarú

This piece was part of a three-day rock concert. Inspired in the hundreds of thousands of deaths- many of them with extreme violence and torture- caused by the Mexican drug war in 2010 during the rule of Felipe Calderón. As the grim Aztec tradition of human sacrifice seemed to emerge from the past, the ancient pre-Hispanic gods seemed alive more than ever. Living off of human sacrifice.

The name Mictlan comes from the Aztec language Nahuatl, "mic" means death and "tlan" means place of. Mictlán: "The ninth infraworld where Milctlantecuhtli, Lord of the Common Dead rules is a dark and cold place where the smoke has no way out."
—Vatican Codex 3738.

At the top of the pyramid a number appears on a digital screen with a sensor marking the number of lives "sacrificed" in each performance of this piece where the living are summoned to join the dead in the the Mictlán, the Aztec land of the dead, and dance, in this way honoring those who lost their lives. It is a cathartic way of touching the profound feeling of loss, fear and pain (almost 1 in every 4 Mexican families had lost a family member) with the power of life and the power of compassion, every dancer being at once dead and alive. It was a way of being one, together, with all those who have gone missing in countless common graves.