Broken Teeth, 2014-2015

Mauricio Limón, Broken Teeth, inSite/Casa Gallina (film)

Mauricio Limón worked over the course of eleven months with neighbors who did not previously know one another but who all used the “Alameda”—Santa María la Ribera’s central park. One group of neighbors were members of the Forasteros de la Salsa dance troupe. The other was Oscar Jesús Ocaña, alias “El Tierno” (the tender one), a former inmate who dedicates his time to giving boxing classes in the park.

In an eleven-month process, Limón activated dynamics that allowed for the exchange of knowledge between dancing and boxing, in which “El Tierno” and Hannia, a young member of the dance group, carried out improvisations of boxing and choreographic routines, with the goal of empowering the creative possibilities of both types of activities. Through the use of these exercises, Limón created an intersection between two distinct practices in which violence and desire coincide in the use of the body as an element of subjectivation containing personal stories and memories.

In the final work, a two-channel video projection, the bodies of both characters were the protagonists in a dialogue that revealed the environment of everyday violence underlying Mexican urban culture. Accompanied by a chorus of male dancers, the work also deals with the tensions between the contrasting feminine and masculine worlds through Hannia’s active participation in activities that are commonly associated with virility.

—Josefa Ortega

Curators: Osvaldo Sánchez and Josefa Ortega
Final Project: Video installation/2-channel projection/Length 17' 26''.

Production coordinator: Sergio Olivares

Lighting: Diego García

Photography: Diego García, Marco Casado

Editing: Mauricio Limón

Live sound recording: Axel Muñoz

Sound design: Félix Blume

Fixed photography: Fernando Etulain

Color correction: Lisa Tillinger

Musical band: Pascualex Contreras M.

Production assistance: Mariano Arribas

Costume Assistance: Ilián Castañeda and Nancy Brown

Co-participants: Hannia Fernanda Colín Melo, Oscar Jesús Ocaña García, Dance troupe Los forasteros de la salsa, made up of: Heberto García Novelo, José Montolla García, Angel Alejandro Pérez Oramas and Rafael Zúñiga Rivera. Special thanks to: Luis Mdáhuar, Nancy Brown and Sofía Lara.

Interlocutors: Magali Lara, Ricardo Nicolayevsky y Vicente Rojo Cama

This project would not have been possible without support from: the Cuauhtémoc Delegation, American Apparel and the Tamayo Contemporary Art Museum.

And the collaboration of: Magali Lara, Ricardo Nicolayevsky and Vicente Rojo Cama.