THE GARDEN OF FALLING SANDS

As part of the Fringify Independent Arts Festival Hamburg

Duration: approx. 60 minutes

Language: none, little language

"In 'The Garden Of Falling Sands', Morales creates a total work of art, a wonderful utopian space that uses Cumbia Colombiana dance to tell a haunting story of self-discovery and self-assertion." (Annette Stiekele in the Hamburger Abendblatt from 18.3.2023)

THE GARDEN OF FALLING SANDS premiered at the LICHTHOF Theater in March 2023 and can now be seen again on the LICHTHOF stage as part of the Fringify Festival. The Hamburg-based Mexican choreographer Yolanda Morales once again explores the roots of her origins and the echoes they create in her German homeland. A homeland that is characterized by a Eurocentric view, also of her dance art, in which she as a choreographer consistently adopts a de-colonializing stance.

In the Mexican city of Monterrey, a border town with the USA, a special form of Latin American cumbia music has developed since the 1950s, "Cumbia Colombiana". The dances of this cumbia, which are characterized by slowed-down rhythmic shifts, are predominantly practised by marginalized communities there and are constantly changing in line with styles, fashions and the urgencies of social conditions. Here, living traditional dance functions as a ritual of identity and empowerment.

Yolanda Morales and her team install a utopian, magical place on stage, a garden bathed in a yellow, warming light. A place that is fictitiously embedded in this other cultural space, in the barren, ecologically and politically crisis-ridden desert landscape of northern Mexico. It raises questions about the permeability of borders and affiliations in the face of the inhumane effects of a global economic system based solely on growth and profit interests. How do new rituals emerge that can create common ground in our increasingly divergent societies?

Concept, choreography and dance: Yolanda Morales / dance: Sakshi Jain, Sujin Lee, Nicolás Vignolo, Yolanda Morales / dramaturgy: Barbara Schmidt-Rohr / costumes: Ilona Klein / stage: Hanna Lenz / lighting: Lars Kracht / music: Carlos Andrés Rico and Hye-Eun Kim / public relations: STÜCKLIESEL / production management: Katja Kruglikova (PK3000)