Derretiré con un cerillo la nieve de un volcán /
Proyecto PRI

“This project was born right during the presidential election of 2012, under the uncertainty of a possible return of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) to power after twelve years of political alternance. We made a historical revision of a period through which we only lived partially: the PRI’s 71 years in office from 1929 to 2000. The creation of the “Of- ficial party” in 1929 was an act of “political imagination” that ended a period in which power was reached through
arms.
 As one of the great achievements of the PRI regime, free textbooks were decreed in 1959. They tell the history that every public school in the country has access to, and that history is told from a certain place and in a certain way. Those free history textbooks contained part of what is called “Official History”.
Official History is but a specific interpretation of the past. A way to deter- mine the present using the past; a way of justifying it. It promotes a feeling of unity and it legitimates a regime. It is normally presented as univocal, and its possibilities of being spread are broader than those of any other tale.
This is why we wanted to recover fragments of this history and tell it, in our own way. This is why we reprinted the book La revolución institucional by Natalia Valdez Tejeda.
This project is a historical journey to invent a century, a past and a country; to invent ourselves. We seek to construct a history of our country, not better nor more complete than others’, but at least ours.”

Lagartijas Tiradas al Sol, 2013

The play Derretiré con un cerillo la nieve de un volcán [I’ll melt the snow of a volcano with a match] is part of the “PRI” project, which also includes the book La revolución institucional [The institutional revolution]. Through them we attempted to revise the history of the PRI, rethink the party, reflect on its nature: to understand the political organism that became both an instrument of social reconciliation and a means to control political engagement in the whole country. Equally inclusive and exclusive. The play is composed of two argumentative lines: on one hand the history of the party from 1929 to 2000 and on the other the story of the Valdez Tejeda family during the same period. The intention was to contrast the story of a Mexican family and its course with the political sways they lived through.
The Valdez Tejeda family is a fiction we composed from inter- views, novels (especially Los hijos de Sánchez) and scholarly texts. The play is centered on the story of Natalia Valdez Tejeda, a Normal School teacher who wrote a textbook on PRI’s history. This book, La revolución institucional, is a real object of which we did a run of 3000 copies and is signed by Natalia, but it was written by us. Our concern had to do with how one could insert in reality an object that could only be explained through fiction.
On stage there was always the intention to make a play that couldn’t be contained. The play had at least three different ver- sions. Since its presentation at the Kunstenfestivaldesarts in 2013, we adjusted the text many times, as well as the model of representation, space, video, and music. Everything. The last time it was performed was during the anniversary of the Centro de Investigación Teatral Rodolfo Usigli, in Mexico City, 2016.

Coordinación y texto Text and coordination: Luisa Pardo y Gabino o Rodríguez • Asistente de dirección Assistant director: Mariana Villegas • Asistente general General assistant: Hoze Meléndez • Con Cast: Francisco Barreiro, Luisa Pardo y Gabino Rodríguez • Video Video: Yulene Olaizola y Carlos Gamboa • Iluminación Lighting: Sergio López Vigueras • Investigación iconográfica Iconographic research: Josué Martínez • Utilería y vestuario Props and costumes: Úrsula Lascurain • Colaboración artística Artistic collaboration: Fernando Alvarez Rebeil, Manuel Parra García, Juan Leduc, Carlos López Tavera y Felipe Luna • Imagen Image: Francisco Barreiro • Isadora: Carlos Gamboa con la colaboración de Emiliano Leyva • Producción Production: Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Teatro UNAM, FCHMX, Interior 13 y Lagartijas Tiradas al Sol • Asesorías y entrevistas Advisory and interviews: José Woldenberg, Citlali López, Fritz Glockner, Jorge Pérez Escamilla, Luis En, Juan Rodríguez, Carlos Payán, grupo Taller UVA, Florian Borchmeyer y Jerónimo Rosales.
Derretiré con un cerillo la nieve de un volcán se estrenó en el Festival del Centro Histórico de la Ciudad de México y se presentó en muchas ciudades del país y en los siguientes festivales: Festival de Otoño, Madrid; Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Bruselas; FIND Schaubühne, Berlín; Temporada Alta, Giro- na; CASA, Londres; Cena Contemporánea, Rio de Janeiro; among many others.