2025
‘Del aliento al viento, Zanate sigue a un mítico pájaro negro en un viaje de canto y símbolo, trazando melodías desde el bayou, el río, el valle hasta el istmo.’
“From breath to wind, Zanate follows a mythical black bird on a journey of song and symbol, tracing melodies from the bayou (Houston), the river (Río Grande), the valley (Mexico City), to the isthmus (Juchitán).”
In November 2025, I presented Zanate Performance, a participatory performance activating the Taller de artes gráficas de la Casa de la Cultura in Juchitán, Oaxaca, as part of the cultural week programming of the 50th anniversary of La Vela de las Intrépidas Buscadoras del Peligro—an annual celebration organized by the Muxe community of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, one of the most visible Indigenous gender-variant communities in Mexico. Rooted in Zapotec culture, Muxes embody gender fluidity beyond the Western gender binary, and the Vela serves as a space of visibility, celebration, ritual, and resistance that affirms their ancient cultural and social presence.
The performance was developed in collaboration with the Red de Mujeres Lesbianas y Sexodisidentes del Istmo (Redmulesb) and unfolded alongside a no-charge cyanotype workshop that I had organized for local participants of the festival. Zanate merged movement, puppetry, and sound to embody a mythic blackbird (the great-tailed grackle native to Mexico and the southern United States) who carried memories across borders, asking questions around who was Muxe within the layered histories of indigeneity, migration, and rematriation. The work subverted conventional stage performance by foregrounding collective authorship: it was developed with artists and organizers of Redmulesb; community members helped build puppets used in the performance (utilizing cardboard puppet-making techniques learned from Kitchen Table Puppets + Press); and local collaborators from Juchitán joined the improvisation.
The project exemplified an experimental, transdisciplinary practice that resisted linear narratives and instead created a living site of storytelling, embodiment, and return. Situated at the intersection of performance, cultural research, and social practice, it was generously supported by the Foundation for Contemporary Arts’ Emergency Grant.
Zanate and its companion butterflies journeyed from Houston to Juchitán, eventually joined by other migrating animals: manta rays, a bat, and a sea turtle. The performance closed with a live reading by Natalia Virus, self described 'Anti-poet' and member of Redmulesb.
Natalia Virus
Program Flier
