​​“Mistica” honors and celebrates the creative and spiritual energies of Mexico’s indigenous, Afro, and Hispanic roots. It commemorates traditions of Dia De Muertos and transports the audience into the afterlife through the use of blacklight and Ballet Nepantla’s unique fusion of ballet, folklórico, and contemporary dance.

El Venado from the Yaqui tradition narrates the ballet and is accompanied by a range of traditional dances such as La Llorona, Bruja, and Diablos. El Venado Mictlin transitions the ballet from terrestrial life and into the afterlife. Act II is set to black light, as the dead come back to life and dance in celebration.

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Sunday, October 20th 6:00 at the TSC Performing Arts Center.

One performance only!

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Drawing inspiration from Anzaldua’s borderlands theory, Artistic Director Andrea Guajardo and Associate Director Martin Rodríguez Vigíl create performances that speak to the “in-between” qualities of being from both sides of the borderland. They founded the idea of Nepantla, a Nahuatl term of the indigenous people of Mexico, providing a historical, intellectual, and artistic framework through which to explore the “in-between” spaces of history and culture by fusing new artistic expression that fuses different traditions on stage.

Nepantla is Nahuatl, the language of indigenous people from the Valley of Mexico. It means to be in a space of “in-between-ness,” an artistic space that describes Ballet Nepantla’s work.

Ballet Nepantla bridges borders. Its purpose is to move the human spirit from places of conflict and contention to places of peace and enlightenment.

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REVIEWS

“What New York City Ballet's George Balanchine did with the folkloric dances of his native Russia, Ballet Nepantla is doing with the folkloric dances of Mexico”
— KEITH WIDYOLAR, NEW YORK LATIN CULTURE MAGAZINE

 

“[Ballet Nepantla] seeks to underscore not only the wealth of Latinx heritage, but also their contributions, including social, political, cultural, scientific and, in this case, the arts.”
— ISABEL AYALA, CHICANO/LATINO STUDIES PROGRAM DIRECTOR AT MSU, MSU TODAY

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"Ballet Nepantla erases boundaries between dance forms and explores what it means to be from the borderlands — both as a geographical place and a state of mind"
— DANIEL TYX, THE TEXAS OBSERVER

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Ballet Nepantla is "an ambassador for folklorico and Mexican culture."
— MATTHEW WILSON, THE MONITOR

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Juan Michael Porter II wrote that Ballet Nepantla’s “fusion of Mexican folkloric forms and ballet... transforms... into a brochure of the Rio Grande come to life.”
— BROADWAY WORLD