You can count days, weeks, and full moons: but you also count beans and pennies. The size of a tortilla can be calculated by the amount of dough that fits in your hand and you can measure a house with the extension of your own arms. Beyond metaphors and documents, there is knowledge that escapes language, because it has been protected by the body, and has been silently transmitted and transformed with time. 

Landscape is not only a stage for events to take place, but also the protagonist. It’s the place where rain is expected, where the sun rises and the afternoon falls, it’s the place where shade doesn’t exist. Fatalismo Mágico parts from four characters that move on four different routes: each of them has a specific knowledge that is related to the environment, but at the same time they all share an integrative, almost symbiotic approach to it. The morilleros, the oracle tortillera, the sweeper and the yerbero can measure, heal, interpret and read. Each one of the characters travels its own landscape-route. The audio presented here is the voyage of four different characters in the landscapes they inhabit.

Viertel nach Schatten (15 minutes after the shadows) is inspired by preserved Alps customs and traditions. More specifically in the Austrian-Salzburg Lauf traditions. During our first visit to Graz we intuitively noticed a procession-oriented street planning and a clear urban hierarchical architecture specifically in relationship to the placement of churches. We didn’t need to scratch the surface much, after few conversations with locals our intuitions were confirmed: despite the Christian influence and its own culture of processions, we found out about a mix of secular and pagan living Lauf traditions that are celebrated in the area as well.

Lauf traditions unlike processions, are linked with an Early-Middle-Ages ambivalent female character (the Perchta) who represents both darkness and brightness, the passing of time, the planetary cycles, the return of life. This mystical-cosmological celebration (linked with the shortest day of the year and the return of light) was censored by the Christian Church around the 17th century and hacked-adopted-accepted about a century later. Nowadays a Perchtenlauf (a “Walk of many Perchtas”) is an “arbitrary” mix of Christian logos, oral tradition, contemporary, sub-urban social-tissues, ancient traditions, cultural resistance and planetary loops. With our Lauf we want to link our “inherited” Mexican procession culture (which are similar in that they are also Christian and Pre-Christian hybrids in origin) with collective-creativity, history and tradition.

Contemporary composer Carlos Sandoval, composed scores for four of the church bell towers, which accompanied the four dances. The music was also played by a brass band and danced along by the performers, thus creating a musical score that surrounding the city.