Mexican choreographer Yolanda Morales takes a current historical moment in Mexican historiography as the occasion for her new production ”Horses“.
500 years ago the country was conquered by the Conquista, at the same time it is celebrating the liberation 200 years ago from the colonial power Spain. There were no horses in pre-colonial Mexico, and the animals with Spanish horsemen sitting high on them terrified the indigenous population. Even today, equestrian statues still dominate public spaces in Mexican cities as patriarchal symbols of power.
In the huge boiler hall of the Kraftwerk Bille in Hamburg, monumental images and narratives are created and deconstructed again with the help of electronic soundscapes, singing voices and choreographic interventions by four performers. Inspired by traditional dances in which galloping riders have been irreverently caricatured, the work is about laughter, liberation, wildness and tenderness, and an attempt to create an alternative, feminist, postcolonial narrative of humans and animals.