Cultural Revitalization and Tourism at the Moreria Nima' K'iche'

Abstract

A moreria is a small business that fabricates and rents the costumes, props, and masks used in traditional dance-dramas. An effort that bridged ethnic divisions and involved both local and national institutions rescued the beleaguered Moreria Nima' K'iche', transferring ownership from a family to the community. This article explores the conversion of the Moreria Nima' K'iche' and how the resulting institution accommodates both cultural revitalization and tourism. (K'iche' Maya, revitalization, tourism, traditional dance) The largest open public area in the center of San Miguel Totonicapan, Guatemala, normally employed as a bus terminal, was full of people but no buses. An unusual mix of local K'iche' Mayas and national and international tourists mingled in what was once the community graveyard: a stone-paved square framed by the colonial facade of the church and the neoclassical facade of the closed-for-perpetual-renovations municipal theater. Pine-covered mountains and a deep blue sky provided a picturesque backdrop. As people chatted and surveyed the wares of local vendors, rapid bursts of fire came from long strings of cohetes (firecrackers) to signal the beginning of festivities. The entrance of the dancers garnered attention and brought order to the mingling crowd. Each performance group claimed an area in the square, assembling the undifferentiated crowd into distinct audiences. Cowboys, Mejicanos, conquerors and resisters, migrant workers and landowners: characters of all sorts, human and animal, became the center of attention. It was the 1994 Festival de Bailes Tradicionales (traditional dances). Held in the untraditional month of July, the festival drew dance groups from all over the department of Totonicapan. The public performance of traditional dances is normally reserved for the fair in honor of the patron saint of a local town. The titular fair in Toto (as San Miguel Totonicapan is known locally) takes place in mid-September. One of the participating groups normally performed during January. Many traditional dances are as much plays as dances, with involved story lines and complex sets of characters, their dialogue somewhat muffled by wooden masks. A complete performance can last the entire day (with a break for lunch). In Joyobaj, El Quiche, a single performance of The Dance of the Conquest requires several days, with the story picking up in the morning where it left off the night before. The presence of dramatic elements suggests that the term dance-drama is more accurate than simply Traditional dance has had various degrees of importance in Maya communities. Several factors (discussed in more detail later) have led to a general diminishment of dance performance. The civil war and its eruption into widespread violence in the early 1980s played a large part in the near disappearance of traditional dance-drama. The dance festival was and remains an effort to help preserve The Dance of the Conquest, The Dance of the Mexicans, The Dance of the Monkeys, and many other dance-dramas. Some of the dances are historic, some are comedic, and some have origins in pre-Colombian rites. Why were dancers performing outside their communities and outside the titular fair? The Casa de la Cultura Totonicapense (Institute of Arts), with support from the Guatemalan National Tourism Institute (INGUAT), had sponsored the festival and provided costumes, masks, an arena, transportation, and food. Perhaps most central to this unusual presentation was the Moreria Nima' K'iche'.(1) Located within and as a part of the Casa de la Cultura, the Moreria Nima' K'iche' provided the costumes, masks, and props used by most of the performers. The head of the moreria (morero),(2) apprentice tailors, and volunteers worked for weeks to have everything ready. Through the previous night and into the small hours of the morning, highly adorned costumes, various props, and hand-carved masks were assembled into bundles for scores of different characters, and the morero sorted the bundles into groups for each dance. …

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