Somersault at Xib'alb'a explores Mayan cosmogony through the circus

Daniel López Aguilar

La Jornada Newspaper, Saturday, August 2, 2025, p. 4

Salto mortal al Xib'alb'a , a performance by the company Tránsito Cinco Artes Escénicas, explores Mayan cosmogony through the language of contemporary circus. The scene takes on a ritual character, and the body acts as a living codex: each acrobatic move is a symbol, each twist an echo of the myth.

The story, presented at the National Center for the Arts' Theater of the Arts (Cenart), begins with the descent of the twins Hunahpú and Ixbalanqué into the underworld. A journey of cunning, sacrifice, and transformation.

We delve into archetypes, into the connections between characters, into themes such as creation, duality, and death , explained Jorge Díaz Mendoza, the production's director.

From there, we considered how each body could embody symbolism. How a fall could speak of rebirth.

One of the most striking moments occurs during the hair suspension scene: the artist representing Ixbalan, who hangs by his hair, rises, spins, folds, and rises again. The physical risk sustains a powerful metaphor.

"That leap isn't a trick ," Díaz Mendoza added in an interview with La Jornada . "It's an act of faith. Facing death in order to be reborn ."

The production, part of the series "Opera is pure storytelling... and so is theater and circus!", proposes an unconventional narrative. Words are intertwined with images, gestures, and body rhythm.

Jessica González plays the narrator, a figure inspired by the Ahk'ij, a Mayan spiritual guide. Her voice not only tells stories, it also summons them. It's as if she evokes actions with her words. She functions as a bridge between the myth and the viewer , the director emphasized. The work doesn't aim to literally illustrate passages from the Popol Vuh ; instead, it seeks to activate their resonance in the present.

The set, conceived as a symbolic space and far removed from realism, presents a mutable territory. "We wanted Xib'alb'a to be perceived rather than displayed," Díaz commented.

We designed a minimalist space, full of symbols, where each structure could be transformed and take on different meanings.

Designer Guillermo Ortiz developed the stage props and circus apparatus that support this physical narrative.

Édgar Mora's lighting and Azucena Galicia's costumes create a dense, mysterious atmosphere. The original music, composed by Eduardo Martínez, interweaves percussion, vibraphones, and electronic sounds with pre-Hispanic resonances. This combination creates a sonic texture that accompanies the stage action and accentuates its emotional energy.

The cast of Tránsito Cinco takes on multiple roles. The challenge was to transform technique into a vehicle of expression. The key is the emotion with which a number is performed, the rhythm, and the intention. "The acrobatics had to speak ," Jorge Díaz Mendoza emphasized.

“The dramaturgy eschews linear progression. It functions like a codex: fragments reveal passages. Games, sacrifices, trials, and metamorphoses follow one another like signs that invoke the mythical Mesoamerican universe. The performance circulates like a visual offering.

For Tránsito Cinco, contemporary circus is an integral language. A contortion expresses the capacity for adaptation. The spin of the Cyr wheel encapsulates the idea of eternal time. The body narrates, as rock or amate paper did before it.

Salto mortal al Xib'alb'a will offer its last two performances this weekend at the Cenart Arts Theater (Río Churubusco 79, Country Club neighborhood), on August 2 and 3 at 1:30 p.m.

▲ Effigy Vase II , oil. 2023. Photo courtesy of the artist .

Merry MacMasters

La Jornada Newspaper, Saturday, August 2, 2025, p. 5

The Espacio Cultural Gallery in Oaxaca City displays the work of painter Demián Flores, which coincided with the opening of the Rufino Tamayo Museum of Pre-Hispanic Art of Mexico in Oaxaca 49 years ago. These works feature 12 lithographs of ancient Mexican idols, alluding to the more than 1,000 archaeological pieces donated by Tamayo.

These lithographs are based on simple drawings of some of the ceramics in the collection, to which Tamayo then applied a colored stain , Demián notes. Many of the vessels housed in the museum have their own unique character . To the extent that the original museography, which is still preserved, emulates Tamayo's paintings, the museum's colorful niches absorb the colors that surround them and, in the process, change the way we look .

Attracted by Tamayo's graphic work, Flores took up "their inspiration to make a somewhat academic, almost archaeological drawing of the same Zapotec effigy vessels, both from the Oaxacan site and the National Museum of Anthropology. Of these funerary urns, one of the most represented and relevant deities within the Zapotec pantheon is Cocijo, the god of lightning, rain, storms, hail, clouds, fog, and dew ." Flores drew in person at both sites.

Cocijo is the title of the series Flores began more than three years ago; part of it is on display at the Espacio Cultural de Oaxaca. It includes 14 oil paintings in various formats, eight prints, and a ceramic piece. At the end of 2023, the artist exhibited some of these works in his solo exhibition , A flor de piel (A flower of skin) , the latest exhibition held by Galería Casa Lamm.

Flores had previously worked on the figure of Chaac, a Mayan version of Cocijo , a piece that engaged in dialogue with a work on the same theme by French artist Orlán, exhibited in 2024 at the Museo de Arte Popular. From there, the Cocijo series originated, which required an almost archaeological work with the drawing of these pieces , many of whose iconographic attributes have to do with the bat, the earth, the sky, the jaguar, and the serpent. When bringing these images together and creating a kind of palimpsest—not all of them are effigy vessels of Cocijo—Flores realized that the combination of these iconographies created new meanings.

Create new signifiers

At that point, he decided to shift the series of drawings toward painting. This led him to consider what I was interested in doing in painting as a contemporary artistic practice . He decided it would involve revisiting painting from its own elements as a meaningful form . He thus displaced these small linear drawings as a form of pictorial structure, and these lines became a motive for considering painting: how the line could determine pictorial space .

According to Flores, Cocijo is his most pictorial series, although if you look at the paintings, they're actually lines that construct the visual field . He was also interested in creating "a kind of antipalimpsest, as if one were dismantling the elements of painting—line, color, space—to arrive at almost essential forms."

Part of the series is also on display in Mexico City, as the graphic pieces were created at the La Imagen del Rinoceronte Workshop in downtown Tlalpan.

Led by printmaker Humberto Valdez, the workshop is open free of charge to young people who work there and learn graphic design. Between 50 and 60 young people attend each day, notes Flores, who created a portfolio of six prints there, the edition of which he donated so the funds raised could support the purchase of materials.

The Cocijo exhibition will remain open until August 15 at the Espacio Cultural de Oaxaca, Crespo 114, Oaxaca City.

Latin Press

La Jornada Newspaper, Saturday, August 2, 2025, p. 5

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met) announced that more than 200 original pieces, including sculptures and artifacts, featuring images of the gods of Ancient Egypt will be exhibited at the institution.

Starting October 12, the Divine Egypt exhibition will explore the spirituality and religious art of this distant, yet attractive and enigmatic civilization.

It will feature spiritual representations of these deities in temples, sanctuaries, and tombs, as well as the instruments that gave them life in daily worship, establishing a connection between the real and divine worlds. The works on display range from monumental statues to small, elegant figurines symbolizing 25 of the major idols of that era, including the falcon-headed god Horus; the lion-headed Sakhmet; and the great creator for the Egyptians, Ra, among others.

The museum's executive director, Max Hollein, noted that the exhibition brings together the finest works on loan from some of the world's leading institutions, including the Fine Arts Museum in Boston, the Louvre in Paris, and the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen, although more than 140 of those objects belong to the Met itself, he noted.

The gallery highlighted that one of its most significant pieces is a solid gold statue of the god Amun, which will adorn a recreation of a divine barque , a type of vessel that transported the main deity of a temple.

Aiming to examine the ways in which the kings and people of Ancient Egypt recognized and interacted with their gods, each exhibition section will offer an immersive opportunity to provide a window into the thought and spirituality of one of history's most enduring and sophisticated civilizations.

The exhibition highlights the profound sense of continuity and renewal with which the Egyptians addressed the great mysteries of life and death, anchoring their answers in the visual and symbolic richness of their religious art, the Met concluded.