Abstract

ARAIZA HERNANDEZ, Elizabeth. The Art of Acting Various Particular Realities: Notes for an Anthropological Study of Christmas Pageants in the Purépecha Region. Relac. Estud. hist. soc. [online]. 2013, vol.34, n.135, pp.181-218. ISSN 2448-7554.

This article presents some partial results of an ongoing research project on Christmas pageants in the Purépecha region of Michoacán, events that put on display a variety of performance modalities: acting, dance, ritual, theater, singing and sensorial registers-gestures, music, sound- that refer to different universes of meaning: the corn harvest, the dry season, the winter solstice, devotion to the Niño Dios and, at the same time, a kind of "cult" to the devil, accompanied by displays of status and social hierarchy, kinship ties, identity, and difference, among others. It is as if different particular realities are acted out in the same sequence. Attention centers specifically on two of these realities: the staging of current events and the "condensation of normally incompatible identities" (Houseman 2003). In a first moment, the essay presents the historiographical and ethnographic background information required to analyze -in the second section- the specificity of this type of dramatization, based on the case of Christmas pageants in the Purépecha region.

Keywords : Christmas pageants; Purépechas; ritual; theater; identities.

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