Poets of the stage: Maroma campesina (traditional peasant circus)

Luz María Robles Dávila

Design and Programming: Omar Moscoso

CD (Documentary Studies and Consultation Works Collection)
CONACULTA / INBA-CITRU
México, 2008

From a poetic that explores, documents and analyzes popular stage art in its function of identifying social groups that share singular expressive qualities and for their propitiating capacity of ludic and festive community experiences, in this multimedia CD, Luz María Robles condenses the results of a long-term investigation about a stage practice with strong historic roots and a great contemporary vitality: La Maroma Campesina, a spectacle close to circus art, whose diffusion zone and festive circuits are localized in the lower Mixteca region in the States of Oaxaca, Puebla and Guerrero and, in particular, about the companies of maromas (somersaults) and troubadours based in the area of Tezoatlán de Segura y Luna, in the municipality of Huajuapan de León, in Oaxaca. In the initial menu of the multimedia, with option 1, “Essays”, the studies “Greetings to the Audience”, “The Cntribution of the Stage Arts to the Southern Tour”, “The Multimedia of Research”, “The Great Poets of the Lower Mixteca” and “The Impact of Migration” are displayed. Using option 2, “The Mixtecan Somersault (phenomenology)”, one accesses the analytical texts as well as video and audio registers that introduce us to the world of those “fond actors” – clowns, acrobats, tumblers, magicians and musicians – that integrate the company; to the repertoires of their verses and songs; to the preparation of make-up and the clowns’ wardrobe; the building of the space (a yard, a ring, a site and a court) in which the stand is constructed for the performance, to the structure and the moments of the spectacle: the clown’s verses in their greetings, singsongs, pantomimes, interludes, goodbyes; the games, tricks and dances; the acrobatics from heights on the trapeze, wires and ropes; until the end of the party, with audiovisual registers of the dances and repertoire pieces of the wind bands that accompany the maroma. With option 3, “Resources”, one accesses the conjuncture of the documentary source, through the sub-menus “Texts”, “Audios” and “Graphic Material”, with registers in analog and digital support of testimonies, verses, pantomimes, interludes, songs and repertoire of the wind band references to precursory works on the theme, and objects such as toys and musical instruments, among others; materials that conform a representative archive of the sources (primary and secondary) generated and recuperated by the research, ordered in the topics: “Relation of Informants”, “Archive of Interviews”, “Characters”, “Companies and Groups”, “Vignettes”, “Routes”, “Programmes”, “Verse Bank”, “Glossary”, “Online resources”, “Video library”, “Photographic library” and “Audio library”, materials that are all organized in a documentary management system of the project, that makes them available for consultation by other researchers in the CITRU installations.