Maroma campesina: (traditional peasant circus): from the yodel to the stage

Production, script and edition: Eugenio Cobo

Research and interviews: Luz María Robles

Presentation: Maya Ramos Smith

DVD (Documentary Studies and Consultation Works Collection, from the DIGITAL LIBRARY 3)
CONACULTA / INBA-CITRU
México, 2009

As an exceptional example and in line with the research documentary Poets of the Stage: La Maroma Campesina, of Luz María Robles, also published in the CITRU Digital Library; with recorded video images between 2002 and 2003 by Alejandro Macías and Rubén Luengas, the documentary of Eugenio Cobo, Maroma Campesina:from the yoke to the representation, verses about the acrobatic company from Rosario Xicaltepec, from the town of Tezoatlán de Segura y Luna, in the lower Mixteca of Oaxaca.

The narration allows the follow-up of the development of a performance, with sequential frames of the building of the stand in the chosen space and the preparation of actors for the performance, passing through the feast and announcements of the clowns that tour the town accompanied by the encouraging band, until the live spectacle to the public, with the comic acts and the clowns’ verses, the Yucunuti de Benito Juárez band’s music, fireworks and dances, and acrobatic feats of the trapeze artists, tumblers, wire walkers and gymnasts. Interviews with the members of the group with testimonies about their preparation and work for community events, their social ambience and the company’s dream to continue and keep alive a tradition that their ancestors practiced decades before, are interpolated in the film.