Woven from ancestral myths and traditional music, Makuyeika Colectivo Teatral’s “Andares” reveals the extraordinary spirit of Mexico’s remote corners and its humblest of inhabitants. With a live musician and inspired actors, the play shines a light on a range of realities — land usurpation, widespread violence, community resistance — that Indigenous people face at the crossroads of modern life and tradition.
In conjunction with Indigenous Peoples Day, the Moss Arts Center presents two performances of “Andares” on Wednesday, Oct. 12, and Thursday, Oct. 13, at 7:30 p.m. Co-sponsored by El Centro-Hispanic and Latinx Cultural Center and the LGBTQ+ Resource Center, the performances will be held in the center’s Anne and Ellen Fife Theatre, located within the Street and Davis Performance Hall at 190 Alumni Mall.
The work is performed in Spanish and Indigenous languages with English supertitles, and audiences will be seated on stage.
Three characters detail stories of Indigenous youth growing up in rural Mexico. At times hopeful, other times heartbreaking, they navigate cultural changes and its effects on their families. One character, Maychi, reminisces about tending to the crops with his father, admitting that he never felt a connection to the land like his father and brothers did.
“Even so … I don’t know why, but in my dreams I sometimes see myself returning to my village — once I’m old with a house next to the fields, rocking myself in my hammock, watching how the growing bean plant embraces the corn, tracing drawings on the soil with my finger,” Maychi says. “And dying there, in my hammock, with the scent of the rain over the last embers of the burning field.”
Makuyeika Colectivo Teatral is a theater company dedicated to creating original works inspired by the narratives and theatricalities of Mexico’s Indigenous people, touching themes of social, cultural, and human value. Héctor Flores Komatsu founded the company after a year-long theatrical search across Mexico’s Indigenous communities as part of his work as an inaugural recipient of the Julie Taymor World Theater Fellowship.
Related events
Immediately after the performance of “Andares” on Wednesday, Oct. 12, speak with Makuyeika Colectivo Teatral in a post-performance question-and-answer session moderated by Jacqueline E. Bixler, Alumni Distinguished Professor of Spanish in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures.
During their visit to Blacksburg, members of Makuyeika Colectivo Teatral will conduct workshops with high school students and a local nonprofit organization serving Hispanic and Latinx communities and will engage with Virginia Tech students through class visits in programs including Spanish, theater arts, women’s and gender studies, and the Alliance for Social, Political, Ethical, and Cultural Thought.
Ticket information
Tickets for the performance are $25 for general admission and $10 for students and youth 18 and under. Tickets can be purchased online; at the Moss Arts Center’s box office, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday; or by calling 540-231-5300 during box office hours.
