Requiem for an Alcaraván is a performative dance rooted in the figure of the muxhe, or man-woman, a term that carries specific cultural meaning within Zapotec tradition. Through the concept of muxheidad, Zapotec culture holds space for gender expressions and same-sex relationships that both coexist with and disrupt patriarchal and binary structures, though not without contradiction.
A muxhe is a man who assumes roles culturally associated with women, in labour, love, care and sex. Muxheidad is both a veiled social recognition and celebration of transgression: sanctioned and stigmatised.
In Requiem for an Alcaraván, the muxhe dances and invites the spectator to participate in traditional female rites of passage: the wedding, la mayordomía, la curandera rezandera, the mourning. The performance culminates in a transformation: as the dancer embodies the alcaraván or berelele (Burhinus oedicnemus), a local bird associated with metamorphosis. In some versions of the bird's myth, the male alcaraván, once he mates, is sacrificed by the female - a symbolic closing of a cycle.
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Presented by Take Me Somewhere 2025.
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Performance will be captioned