The transmodernity of Los Maromeros by Verónica Musalem

a performative critique of modernity / coloniality

Abstract

For the members of the Modernity / Coloniality research group, decolonization, to be effective, cannot be limited to the economic and political sphere, but must also relate to categories of thought, imaginaries and knowledge (Lander, 2000). From this perspective, art in general, and theater in particular, because they are imaginary, seem capable of making a real epistemic shift and of generating utopian proposals. This article sets out to explore one of these propositions by analyzing the play Los Maromeros by Mexican playwright and director Verónica Musalem. More specifically, he shows how the coloniality of the genre (Lugones, 2008) is subverted by an aesthetic that can be qualified as transmodern (Dussel, 2017). This dramatic aesthetic takes as its model the maroma, a Mixtec, Zapotec and Nahuatl acrobatic and ritual practice that can be seen as a counter-anthropological ritual. It is about summoning the white alien to bodily actualize his power and ward off him by means of appropriation. Moreover, the maroma can be understood as a rite of passage that repairs the symbolic castration introduced by the coloniality of the genre (Segato, 2014). Thus, the modeling of the maroma in Los Maromeros by Verónica Musalem can be read as an act of resistance and epistemic reappropriation by means of performativity.