Veracruz, nos estamos deforestando o cómo extrañar Xalapa

What can I say today about Xalapa, about Veracruz, the land that saw my father’s birth and that of my grandparents and my great–grandparents? I wonder how such dreadful things can happen in a place where such beautiful flowers bloom.

“VERACRUZ nos estamos deforestando o cómo extrañar Xalapa [VERACRUZ, we are deforesting ourselves or how to miss Xalapa] is a lecture performance which exposes Luisa Pardo’s relationship to the place where she grew, the tropical paradise where her father’s family was born. The work consists of a recount that involves politics, freedom of speech and violence in the state, centered around the murder of Nadia Vera and Rubén Espinosa in Mexico City and several local voices that create a map, a broader panorama of what goes on in Veracruz.
Veracruz is where the trail that Cortés followed to conquer Mexico–Tenochtitlan is located. Veracruz is a thin fringe of land that has a coast and mountains, much poverty and violence, murders, disappearances and silence.”

Lagartijas Tiradas al Sol, 2016

VERACRUZ was conceived when Pablo Fidalgo commissioned a lecture on the murder of Nadia Vera for the Festival Escenas do Cambio 2016, in Santi- ago de Compostela. The Spanish and Mexican artistic communities were concerned, for Nadia’s labor as a cultural worker was well known in Spain. Upon receiving the proposal Gabino asked me [Luisa] what to do the panorama wasn’t clear, the murder was very recent, in many ways close, and we didn’t want to appear opportunistic. We had some questions in our minds at all times: “Why talk about this outside of Mexico? How to do it? Why us? From where?” We decided to build something more than a lecture. We would weave the story of the murder through diverse voices from Veracruz: friends, acquaintances, artists and scholars. In parallel, we would develop a text where we told the history of Veracruz, of my father’s family, of my relationship to this land, and a journalistic research about the politicians from Veracruz and their involvement in crime and violence. All in the format of a lecture performance. I called many people of which only a few answered. Some of them wanted to remain anonymous or asked for their words not to be openly expressed in the play. Their words were very important, and they helped me compose the dramaturgy. On the stage there was a table with a computer from which I played video and sound, it also had many little objects on it and was surrounded by plants. During the lecture performance, I carried the objects and the plants, one by one, to the other side of the stage, where I slowly built an altar with them.

Creación Creation: Luisa Pardo • Colaboración artística Artistic collaboration: Gabino Rodríguez • Diseño de Iluminación Lighting design: Sergio López Vigueras • Programación de Isadora Isadora programming: Carlos Gamboa • Producción Production: Lagartijas Tiradas al Sol • Agradecimientos Thanks: Shantí Vera, Carlos López Tavera, Jerónimo Rosales, Josué, Amanda, Julián Equihua, Quetzali Macías Ascencio, Georgina Macías, Cuauhtémoc Cuaquehua Calixto, Luis Emilio Gomagú.
Este proyecto forma parte de “La democracia en México (1965–2015)”. This project is part of “La democracia en México (1965–2015)”.

VERACRUZ was premiered in February 2016. It is a co–production between Lagartijas Tiradas al Sol and Festival Escenas do Cambio in Santiago de Compostela. It has been performed in several national and international venues such as Festival BAD, Bilbao; Temporada Alta, Girona and Lima; El lugar sin límites, Madrid; Festival TNT, Terrasa; Theater Nestroyhof Hamakom, Vienna; Festival Tiempo de Mujeres, Mexico City; Festival 4×4, San Cristobal de las Casas; Proklama 12, Vitoria; CTDC Sala Llauradó, Havana; Latitudes Contemporaines, Lille; CAI 2017, Guelatao.