Diasporic movement A CO N V E R SATI O N WIT H CH O R EO G R A PH E R M A IJ A G A RC ÍA B Y K AT I E C R A DD O C K
Choreographer Maija García is crafting movement for Kiss My Aztec! that, like its score, is exhilaratingly eclectic. Artistic Associate Katie Craddock chatted with Maija about her work and experience creating choreography for the show. Would you tell me about your artistic background? I cut my teeth in the concert dance world, first in San Francisco and then New York. Actually, I landed my first professional dance job at the Alice Arts (now Malonga) Center in the East Bay. I studied sustainable development at San Francisco State (back in the day, when nobody knew what sustainability meant). I trained with Cecilia Marta, and taught Contemporary and Latin Jazz at Alonzo King Lines Ballet/San Francisco Dance Center and Rhythm & Motion to pay for college. Choreography came out of teaching, actually. I had to make up phrases, so... I moved to New York at 24, toured internationally with Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, and spent 10 years making and re-making Fela! on Broadway. Inspired to devise original work, I started a theatre arts organization — Organic Magnetics — to produce live installations about the history of New York City (the untold stories). I’ve been working as a freelance director and choreographer all over the U.S., and Cuba, where my family is from. My movement background is a collage of classical and contemporary dance of the African and Latinx diasporas. Why are you excited to be making this piece right now? Growing up in Ann Arbor, I was usually the only Latina in my class. I remember connecting with a paragraph about the ancient Mayan and Aztec cultures in a textbook. It came to my consciousness through my name, at first. It was like a portal: I wanted to know everything about the indigenous people of the Americas — their language, spirituality, cosmology; their temples and pyramids! I was empowered to learn that advanced civilizations thrived in the Americas before “discovery” by Europeans. This was a point of pride in my young mind that would shape my Latinx and artistic identity as a Cuban American. In 2000, I trekked through Mexico and Central America to explore Mayan and Aztec ruins and live in the jungle. Have you ever heard a tree monkey scream? It was one of the most cathartic and formative experiences of my life. I’ve always felt connected to indigenous wisdom — in its inextricable relation to the natural world — and I am truly invested in bringing it to life theatrically through this piece. I don’t mean to mislead you; we are not doing traditional Aztec dance. We are conjuring resilience in a way that infuses the comedy with a hint of magical realism. Theatre is a place where we can try to imagine what was, carrying a torch for
Maija García and Lauren Cox choreograph a dance for Kiss My Aztec! P H OTO BY C H E S H I R E I S A AC S
CO N TIN U E D O N PAG E 27 2 0 1 8–1 9 · I S S U E 7 · T H E B E R K E L E Y R E P M AG A Z I N E · 2 3
