Frontera I Border – A living monument by Amana Piña (MX/AT)

Performance:
28 June 19:00 at Kunstsilo

Suitable for: Everyone
Tickets: Click here for tickets!


In additional to the performance on the 28th it will be a short performance “Announcing a monument” at Kunstsilo June 27th 16:00-16:30 

Tras, tras, tras… traca, traca, tras, tras.
Traca, traca, tras, tras.
Tras, tras. 
That is how the dance begins…
– Rodrigo de la Torre

“He told me: Prepare for tomorrow, we will cross the border. To cross at the first try is not far from a dream. After the slope, walk with great care, the way to the other side is plagued with snakes”
– Popular “corrido” song, author unknown

The piece corresponds to the fourth volume of the research on “Endangered Human Movements” *, a long-term research carried out by choreographer Amanda Piña on the current loss of planetary bio-cultural diversity.

Rooted in an ancient pre-Hispanic dance form that historically meets a “Danza de Conquista”, ( a Conquest Dance), re -enacting the battles in Europe between Mors and Christians, implemented by the Spanish Crown, (Casa Austria /Habsburg) to develop the conquest of Mexico.

This old dance is practiced and actualized again during the 1990’s  by a group of youngsters from Matamoros, Tamaulipas ( MX) at the border between Mexico and the U.S. Led by dance leader Rodrigo de la Torre, the dance is practiced today, in a context where extreme violence, narco traffic, militarization, and cheap labor industries meet.

If race is a mark carried on a body of a certain position in History, to unsettle the hegemony of that history is central to the development of this work which looks at “traditional” dance as a repertoire of inscriptions where many narrations intertwine, encoding a continues movement of resistance to all forms of oppression and dispossession.

Frontera I Border, proposes a living monument, a monumental dance, as a homage to the power and resilience of those whose bodies carry borders,  to those who dear to cross.

*Endangered Human Movements is the title of a long-term project, started in the year 2014, focusing on human movement practices, which have been cultivated for centuries all over the world. Inside this frame a series of performances, workshops, installations, publications and a comprehensive online archive are developed which reconstruct, re-contextualize and re signify human movement practices in danger of disappearing, aiming at unleashing their future potential.

 

  • Amanda Piña is a Chilean-Mexican-Austrian based artist living between Vienna and Mexico City. Of mixed ancestry, Amanda has Spanish, Mapuche and Lebanese (Syrian-Palestinian) roots. Her work embodies the political and social power of movement, grounded in indigenous forms of knowledge and world making/maintaining practices. Piña is a pluri-faceted artist working through choreographic and dance research, creating and curating and working within university and artistic educational frameworks, writing and editing publications around what she refers to as ‘endangered human movement practices’.

    Her artistic work looks for escape routes to the logics of modernity, focusing on the political and social power of movement for temporarily dismantling ideological separations between contemporary and traditional, human and animal, nature and culture.She works within performing and visual arts contexts. Her work was shown in various theatres, galleries and museums around the world, such as Kunsthalle Wien, Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain Paris, MUMOK Museum of Modern Art Vienna, deSingel Arts Campus Antwerp, Museo Universitario del Chopo, México and GAM Centro Cultural Gabriela Mistral, Santiago de Chile among others.

    Originally trained as a painter, her interest in performance lead her to study Physical Theater in Santiago de Chile, Theater Anthropology in Barcelona and Contemporary Dance and Choreography in Mexico, Barcelona, Salzburg (SEAD) and Montpellier (Ex.e.r.ce Choreographic Centre Montpellier).

    In 2006 she received the danceWEB scholarship and in 2007 the scholarship for Young Choreographers from Tanzquartier Wien. In 2018 she was awarded with the Fonca Arts grant from the Mexican Government. In 2024 she was granted Gwartler grant.

    From 2008-2022 she curated the gallery space specialized in expanded choreography and performance nadaLokal in Vienna. Currently works on the realisation of the long-term project Endangered Human Movements, concerned with the re appearance of ancestral forms of movements and cultural practices. Five volumes of research in the scope of this project have been already realised which include performances, Installations, Videos, publications, curatorial frames, workshop and lectures. She was a research fellow at DAS THIRD, from the department of Theatre, Dance and Performance at Amsterdam University of the Arts.

    Amanda Piña is a guest teacher at Stockholm University of Arts, (SKH), and at DAS Choreography, at the Amsterdam University of Arts. In 2024 she will teach at ISAC of the Brussels Academy of Fine Arts, and will be a guest Professor of the Valesca Gert Chair of Choreography at Akademie der Künste Berlin.

    Her work has been funded by diverse institutions from Europe and Latin America such as the Culture department of the city of Vienna; The Cultural Ministry of Mexico: The Chilean program for arts and culture,(Fordart); the Siemens Cultural Foundation for Latin America, The austrian Cultural Forum; The research grant from the french Ministry of Culture and CND; ARIAS Platform for research through the Arts and Sciences; and the Academy of Theatre and Dance at the Amsterdam University of the Arts (AHK) among others.

  • Artistic Direction and Choreography Amanda Piña

    Art Design Michel Jimenez

    Choreography & Transmission danza de Matamoros Rodrigo de la Torre Coronado

    Research: Juan Carlos Palma Velasco, Amanda Piña

    Performance Túlio de Amorim da Rosa, Dafne del Carmen Moreno Huerta, Mariê Mazer, Matilde Amigo, Lina Maria Venegas Baracaldo, Valentina Wong, Inés Sofía Cardona Parra, Rodrigo De La Torre Coronado, Jorge Luis Cruz Carrera, Luis Alberto Moreno Zamorano

    Music and composition Christian Müller

    Live percussion Jorge Luis Cruz Carrera

    Research / Theory / Dramaturgy Nicole Haitzinger

    Costume La mata del veinte / Julia Trybula

    Production Management nadaproductions

    International distribution Something Great (Berlin)

    Senior Adviser Marie–Christine Barrata Dragono

    Management Angela Vadori Smart.at

    Frontera / Border – A living monument is produced by nadaproductions, co-produced Kunsten Festival des Arts, Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Arts Finland and Asphalt Festival Düsseldorf, and is funded by the City of Vienna (Kulturabteilung der Stadt Wien).

    With the support of the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the National School of Folkloric Dance of Mexico, INBA, National Institute of Fine Arts Mexico.