Female Speaker:
From the Library of Congress, in Washington, D.C.

Theadocia Austen:
Good afternoon.  [laughs]  Thanks so much for coming.  I'm Thea Austin, the Public Events Coordinator for the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, and on behalf of the entire staff, I want to welcome you to the 2009 Homegrown Concert Series.  

Here in Coolidge Auditorium, we've featured incredible artists over the many years that this auditorium has existed.  In 1938, Alan Lomax used it to capture piano performances and oral histories of the great jazz pioneer Jelly Roll Morton, and those recordings were later -- well, recently released on CD and won a Grammy.  Josh White and the Golden Gate Quartet, Mississippi John Hurt, Dolly Parton, and many other legendary performers have performed on this stage.  And because of that, we've recorded these performances, and those have gone into our permanent archives so that future generations and scholars can learn from them and enjoy them.  So today's performance will also be recorded both on the Web and on audio, and it'll go into our permanent collections.

So, right now, this would be a good opportunity to turn off your cell phones because if they go off they may be recorded for the next hundred years.  Who knows?

[laughter]

They'll hear your cell phone ring.

The Homegrown Series was designed to feature the very best of traditional music and dance from around the nation.  The American Folklife Center works collaboratively with the Millennium Stage at the Kennedy Center to bring you these concerts.  We also work with the very many talented and dedicated states' folk arts coordinators across the country.  They help us identify and bring to D.C. the most important and representative traditions from around the country.

And, today, we're presenting a group from Philadelphia that carries forward some very old Mexican traditions.  So to introduce you to the group and tell you a little bit more about the tradition, let me introduce you -- to you Lisa Rathje, an Arts & Heritage Specialist at the Institute for Cultural Partnerships in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

[applause]

Lisa Rathje:
Thank you.  It is such an honor to be here and to introduce to you Ollin Yoliztli Calmecac to you today.  Now, some of you might believe that the danza mexica are only relics of the past.  However, you only need to spend just a little bit of time with this group to realize how much this is truly a part of their living and everyday culture.  The complexity of colonial and indigenous histories and their legacy in the Americas, it informs tradition, custom, and other markers of cultural identity for many who identify as indigenous or native to their regions of present-day Mexico.  The energy of the art and the spirituality in danza mexica combine to powerfully act as a tool for remembering one's roots and one's ancestors.  In preserving this tradition through Ollin Yoliztli Calmecac, Brujo de la Mancha and the other danzantes offer to the growing Mexican community of Philadelphia and truly beyond a significant opportunity to participate in dances and ceremonies that, by their very nature, challenge cultural homogenization and critique colonialism and their legacy, a legacy which continues to inform social and economic narratives.  

This group, Brujo, co-founded with Daniel Chico Lorenzo in 2003 to investigate, understand, and raise awareness of the Mexicayotl culture.  Lorenzo had danced in the zocalo as a danzante and was considered a master artist of this tradition.  When Lorenzo returned to Mexico in December of 2006, Brujo took the role of training the other dancers and finding additional masters from who they could learn this full range of tradition that inform their practice.  For being a danzante, it's more than just about the movements that you will see on the stage.  Look, as you're watching this performance, for all the other parts that inform this rich tradition: the dress, the objects, the instruments.  And the instruments, by the way -- Brujo handmade many of the instruments, the flutes that you'll be hearing today.  

So without further ado, I would like to bring Brujo de la Mancha onto the stage to start this afternoon's performance.  Thank you very much.

[applause]

[music]

Brujo de la Mancha:
Thank you so much for coming over.  We are called Ollin Yoliztli Calmecac, translated in English as "the School of the Blood Moving in the Heart."  We have the remains of Mexico for you here.  You will hear some words here and there, and we will describe it to you as this performance is going. 

But we are very glad that you are here, and we are very glad that we are here because you don't choose to come here.  You come here because you want to.  You come here because you want to learn, and we come here because we want to do the same for you.  We want you to enjoy and to learn and to enjoy all the great, great, beautiful Mexican culture.

[begin music]

Male Speaker:
[foreign language]

Brujo de la Mancha:
Quetzalcoatl, the place where the sun come up, where every day is a new day, where the light come out -- come on as the feathered sun [spelled phonetically] and feed our land and then feed themselves.

Male Speaker:
[foreign language]

Brujo de la Mancha:
Cihuatlanpa [spelled phonetically], the place where the females are, the place where the female have a reverence because she even lied, [spelled phonetically] when somebody died, and she was considered as a warrior.

Male Speaker:
[foreign language]

Brujo de la Mancha:
Huitzilopochtli, the left side of your heart, the left side of the human, the willingness to make everything created come alive.  Huitzilopochtli!

Male Speaker:
[foreign language]

Brujo de la Mancha:
Mictlantecuhtli, the place of silence, the place of rest, the place all animals and human beings must go one day.  Mictlantecuhtli!

Male Speaker:
[foreign language]

Brujo de la Mancha:
Oh, feathered sun [spelled phonetically], the place where we get the food and feed themselves, the feathered sun is the one who feed us and create the universe, the man and the woman.  Olmeteotl, the creator of the universe as well.

Male Speaker:
[foreign language]

Female Speaker:
[unintelligible]

Male Speaker:
[foreign language]

Brujo de la Mancha:
Coatlicue, of Mother Earth, where the food come out, where the food it is, she -- it is the mother of all creatures in this beautiful planet.  Coatlicue.

As you saw the first part, the first part we did is to pay respect to the four corners of the planet, the universe, and the ground.  All the culture from this continent has been doing that from thousands of years, thousands of years.  

So now we have a small drumming section for you.  This drumming is about different dances or mexica dance, but put it together in one song.  So basically it will be a little bit more contemporary, but it still have the real roots of the native dance.  Hopefully you like this drum section.  Thank you for coming over.

Male Speaker:
[foreign language]

[end music]

[begin music]

Brujo de la Mancha:
So now we have this more important part.  As you saw, the females are holding something on the top.  It will be fire, but we cannot have fire here. 

[laughter]

So the females hold the fire, and the males hold the seashell.  So the men hold the female, and the female hold the men.  So that's how we do it, duality, on the Aztec culture.

So now it's time for the females to show you a beautiful dance called Coatlicue.

[end music]

[music]

Brujo de la Mancha:
And this so [spelled phonetically] the dancers pay respect to the drum and to the offering.

[applause]

The offering we have here is very essential.  We don't have anything here from somewhere else, just the fruit and vegetables that come from the ground.  We are paying respect to the ground.  We are giving thank you to the Mother Earth for all these beautiful heirlooms [spelled phonetically] we have here and feed themselves.

So now it's time for the men to show you another type of dance.  This dance is called antique, or we call, a giving to the ancestors.  It is a very old dance from Mexico City, and we still -- here, you know, we do what we do because we -- really we love who we are, and we enjoy sharing what we have inside so human being can understand another human being through this beautiful art representation.  Now we have antique dance for you.

[music]

[applause]

Brujo de la Mancha:
So now we going to show you something very special for us, something that we think is very important to share.  This is just an example, and nothing personal [spelled phonetically].  Please, I just want -- I just want to show you something.  If you see on the Mexican flag, and if you see in some things about this country, we use the eagle.  And these little drawing we have here -- we just make a copy so you can see it -- this is the real, Mexican flag.  It's not what you think.  It's not what you have around.  And if you see instead of have the snake on the mouth, on the top is fire, and the bottom is water.  It's the duality.  So Mexican foundation is dual.  Olmeteotl; olme: two.  So this is just a reminder of how Native American in this country and we are very connected.  It doesn't matter we are from south or from the north.  The eagle is the one who has been making the foundation for many cultures.

So now we have white eagle dance for you.  Thank you for coming out.

[music]

[applause]

[music]

Brujo de la Mancha:
The last dance we make, you can Google, eagle flying [spelled phonetically], and you can Google that, and you see on You-Tube the splits we did is what eagles does on the sky flying. 

So for now it's time to see all the dancers doing fire dance.

[music]

[applause]

Brujo de la Mancha:
So now we have to close the ceremonial.  So the first part we did was repeated.  Questions and answer after this.  And we present the dancers to you.  Thank you so much for coming out.

[music]

Male Speaker:
[foreign language]

[applause]

Brujo de la Mancha:
Thank you.  Thank you, thank you, thank you, everybody, for coming over.  I want to introduce to you to these great group from Philadelphia, Milwaukee, and Reading, Pennsylvania, and as well, Texas and sometimes Washington, D.C.  We are called Ollin Yoliztli Calmecac, the School of the Blood Moving in the Heart.  And the first person I'm going to introduce to you, he is the cousin of the co-founder of this group, from the state of Puebla, Ozolco, Puebla, Ruben Chico de Rosario [spelled phonetically].

[applause]

He grew up speaking his native language, Nahuatl.  Now he's the one who will tell to you something.

Ruben Chico de Rosario:
[Nahuatl]

[applause]

Brujo de la Mancha:
Thank you very much to the drums, to the altar, to the seashells, to you, everybody, and especially to your heart for coming over and take part of this. 

Now we have Jose Luis Morales [spelled phonetically] from the state of Puebla, too.  They are neighbors from the same town, just divided by the new lines that human create.  Jose Luis Morales, the drummer of Ollin Yoliztli Calmecac:

[music]

[applause]

Now we have our Edgar Alcantara [spelled phonetically] from Mexico City and the seashell and the tecocoli.  Edgar Alcantara.

[music]

[applause]

Now, from Reading, Pennsylvania, we have Carmen Cihuatl [spelled phonetically], from Mexico City as well.  She is the female dancer.  She is one of the older female dancers, and she really -- it is the one who make other females dance because she encourage a little girls in Reading, Pennsylvania.  She have like a seven to eight girls dancing from like five to almost twelve years old.  Carmen Cihuatl:

[applause]

[music]

[applause]

The females are very important on the Mexican culture.  It cannot be creation without a female.  And I think a lot of you know that already thanks to science, right?  So now let's introduce Alexandra Bergman [spelled phonetically] from Texas.  She's our guest.  She coming over sometimes to Texas to Washington, D.C., to share with us a lot of things.  She's in charge of the incense of Ollin Yoliztli Calmecac.  Alexandra Bergman.

[applause]

Alexandra Bergman:
[foreign language], greetings from Grupo Teocalli in San Antonio, Texaztlan.  And thank you for letting us be here today and to share some of our dances and some of our traditional [foreign language].

[applause]

Brujo de la Mancha:
Before I keep going, I just tell you something: that we have masters.  We are very young, as you see, but we have masters.  And as -- of course, as people who have been growing up in this tradition, I just want to introduce somebody very special for us.  His name is Totocani [spelled phonetically] in the native language of Mexico, Roberto Franco, well known in Spanish.  He has been traveling in Europe and in other countries to show the dance.  He has around 35 years dancing.  He's our master.  Welcome to Master Totocani.

[applause]

Totocani/Roberto Franco:
Thank you very much.  I would like to share with you one of -- a little poetry [unintelligible] our ancestors.  One of these poetry was for one of the governors of the ancient tradition of the Mexica nation, or most of you know, like, Aztecs.  I'm going to start by the Nahuatl language.  I going to try to do in Nahuatl, Spanish, and I try to do my best in English.  Okay.

[Nahuatl]

[Spanish]

I going to -- that -- this going to be the most difficult because the English language.

And said, asking itself [Nahuatl], an memory I -- one memory I left, when I left:  how I -- what going to happen when I left.  Oh, yes, everybody born on this earth for nothing?  Everybody have some mission to do in this earth: try to live the dance; try to live the scenes, the movements because it's only one time in this earth.  Life said and done time [spelled phonetically].

And also -- other thing I would like to share with you that you probably see [spelled phonetically] this day, is probably you asking right now yourself, "Okay" -- about the dances and everything, that probably you ask yourself, "Okay, how many birds should be died to have these guys this outfits?"

[laughter]

You know?  Okay, let me know -- let me tell you something.  Don't have to die any bird because actually the birds lose their feathers every six months, like the dogs, pets.  If somebody have cats, dogs, you know, start losing their hair, hair that literally disaster [spelled phonetically] in the carpets, lose the hair.  The same way, the birds -- every six months the birds lose their feathers.  And it's a way of life [spelled phonetically] collect all these beautiful feathers, and it's a way of life make these outfits.  Also, right now, you can find most of the feathers because having pet stores, like, collect these feathers and have it.  

And probably you have some questions.  If you have some questions, feel free to ask.  And you can raise your hand, okay?

[inaudible]

Okay.  How many different kind of birds?  They'll -- probably -- like, you see, right here have pheasant feathers, have macaw feathers, like have right here, the lady, and other different kind of species of pheasant: they call the golden pheasant.  And also sometimes, for the very special occasions, used to have the eagle feathers, because, like, the most representative feathers because it's like the feathers you win when you do something important.

Other important point is probably, you see, this.  And probably you asking, "What is this?"  You know?  This is the representation of the sun.  If you see, I don't mention god because actually this is a very big confusion when everybody think, like, "Okay, the god of water, the god of fire, the god" -- actually, if you studied the Nahuatl language, don't see the word "god".  It's also representations.  And also, in the ancient tradition, venerate the elements of life, and the elements like the sun, the Earth, the water, and the air around because considering it's very unique and important elements because if don't exist the air, you don't breathe; you die.  If don't have the sun, don't grow the food, and then -- just because, also, the Mexica nation was very important to preserve and respect the elements and the Earth. 

Another point important is like the respect between brothers and sisters.  The same respect have the male and the woman because everybody are equal.  Doesn't matter color race and where you coming from, nothing of that because finally everybody are the human beings, and it's the most important point.  Respect each other -- and the most important point is to start respecting the Mother Earth.  This is the only home I have.  It's the only place I have to live.  Try to leave something for our sons, daughters, in the near future.

Thank you very much, and I hope you enjoy the program.

[applause]

Brujo de la Mancha:
Thank you, thank you, thank you.  I just going to mention something very similar what he said.  And if you see the corn, the corn doesn't come only in one color, and the corn are together in one huge piece.  I think so human, we could do the same, just share who we are, live together, and, you know, have a nice time.

So, thank you so much for coming over.  My name is Brujo de la Mancha.  I live in Philadelphia for eleven years.  I create this group with an uncle of Ruben Chico in 2003, and we have learning a lot of things, and we are so glad that people like you come here and learn about us.  In this way you take the message to your future generations, so they can understand the real, true, history of this continent.

I just want to share something, why the Spanish talked to us we were like from somewhere else.  When the Spanish were came to Mexico, they were very scary and very impressed all the beautiful things we have.  And, of course, what happened 517 years ago, you arrive to a place, and you see people like this.  It's a little bit confusion, right?  But the more important it was like Aztec people, Mexica people, they have a different understanding about life.  We did not get scared about death.  Death is inside of you.  We don't even have the word "death," as well, too, as my master said.  We said "sleeping," you fall asleep.  But the funny part is, we create these instruments that scared the people out.  So that's what the Spanish said we are -- "They are demons.  They are everything else.  They are," like, I don't know.  And this is the dead whistle.  It's an imitation, of course, because the new ones are somewhere on the basement in the Mexican universities and everything else like that.  So it takes for us a lot of time to try to know what to do because even as Mexicans, we don't know who we are.  It's a big fight to understand who we are and other things that you know now on this present life, they are imposed to us as the native people of this continent.

So, hopefully, you like this sound.

[whistle]

So if I played a thousand [spelled phonetically] like this, nobody's going to come around wherever I am.

[laughter]

So that's what the Aztec people did: make a thousand like this and send a thousand people in different points, and you blew it like that, you blew it like that, you blew it like that so the Spanish never come around.  

[laughter]

So another thing I want to tell you, and I know it's very well-known, and people know, we still alive, 517 years ago.  We -- all the Mexican language you can found, not just Nahuatl.  

But the more funny part of everything is we still making confusion in the European people.  One example it is, everybody remember El Dorado?  Where is El Dorado?  Over there.  Where is El Dorado?  Over there.  Where is El Dorado?  Over there.  

Well, we still here in this country now called United States, and you know the big problem.  It is about immigration.  I just want to tell you something.  No human being should be in that category.  The feathers we have, the animals are free.  That's why we have it because we represent the freedom.  And the ducks that fly every day -- sorry, every year from Canada to Mexico, that's a big example.  The butterfly that goes from Canada to Mexico every year.

So thank you very much.  Just how we look nature, that's how we want to live.  We are so glad that you are here, and you don't even have idea how much this means to us.  We come here in different times.  We have six, eight, ten, eleven years in the great city of Philadelphia, and we never thought to be here.  Thank you.  Thank you very much for your company, and be happy, and hopefully have a beautiful day.  If you have any more -- if you want more information about us or music or something, just come around here.  And I think so we have, like, two or three minutes if you want to take some pictures with us.  And thank you so much for coming over.

[applause]

Theadocia Austen:
Another big hand for Brujo de la Mancha and Ollin Yoliztli Calmecac.

[applause]

Female Speaker:
This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress. Visit us at loc.gov.

[end of transcript]