CADU
Carlos Eduardo Felix da Costa (Brasil, 1977)
Process
Proposal
Related Material
The heart of I Am Mandala is the reconstruction of time in old age and the recuperation of the feminine through dance. Cadu and eleven elderly women who attended a ballroom dance class in Santa María la Ribera collaborated for more than two years. During this process, they generated the idea of creating a large-scale crocheted mandala that would become unwound while dancing a danzón. The design and chromatic combinations were agreed upon between the artist and the group, taking the women’s most important life experiences as references. For the artist, the mandala represents the fragmented report of the life of each of the women. A statement that positions the time they set aside for dance as a fundamental life dynamic that has given them autonomy and reframed their femininity away from established roles of grandmother, mother, and wife.
The act of dancing-unravelling became a ritual loaded with strong emotions. A performative moment in which the women staged the conclusion of an ever-closing life cycle, a quiet and contemplative goodbye. The piece consists of a video record of the dance and the unraveling of the mandala itself, together with a single replica of the mandala, which functions as a vestige of the absence, of what will, within a short time, no longer be.
—Violeta Celis
Curators: Osvaldo Sánchez and Violeta Celis
Final Project: Video installation/Length 8' 2''
Acknowledgments
Production coordinators: Sergio Olivares and Mariano Arribas
Social service: Rocío Sánchez
Production of the woven mandala: Tejiendo otro mundo Collective (Ana Karen San Emeterio, Claudia Isela Jaloma, María Margarita Bustos, Alma Origel, Andrea Anaya, Paola Orejarena, Sandra Iv. Porras, Edith Luján, Claudia Cruz and Esperanza Palomino).
Choreographic design: Esthel Vogrig
Main camera: Katri Walker
Secondary camera: Paulina del Paso
Live sound recording: Félix Blume
Photography: Hardy Martínez
Location: Julio Castillo Theater (INBA)
Musical improvisation for audio editing: Darío Bernal Villegas (Percussions) and Ramón del Buey (Clarinet)
Sound production and audio editing: Demián Lara
Additional sound material: Félix Blume
Video editing: Martha Uc
Co-participants: Dance club Las chicas de ayer, hoy y siempre: teacher Juana María Urbina Esparza, Teresa Mendoza Hernández, Gloria Hernández Moreno, María del Carmen Muñoz Lavalle, María Elena Rivera Sil (+), Rosario Rodríguez Moreno, Gloria Guadalupe Rangel Basurto, Delia Alcaraz Martínez, María Elena García Bedolla, Estela Ramírez Flores and Francisca Santamaría Sánchez.
Interlocutors in the presentation of the proposal: Magali Lara, Galia Eibenschutz and Carlos Arias
We appreciate the support of: Marta Turok, Lydia Lavin, Magali Lara, Galia Eibenschutz, Carlos Arias, Juan Meliá (Coordinación Nacional de Teatro del INBA), Alfredo Castillo (Coordinación Teatro Julio Castillo) y María de la Luz González (Sastrería Marilú).
The exhibition Mobilizing affections: Co-participation and local insertion, three artistic projects, Edgardo Aragón, CADU, Rafiki Sánchez held at the Amparo Museum and the Soy Mandala exhibition at the Jumex Museum were made possible thanks to the support of the Buenaventura Foundation through Production National Visual Arts made with fiscal stimulus of article 190 of the LISR (EFIARTES).
CADU, I Am Mandala, inSite/Casa Gallina (process).