Xochimilco at Coaxial

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Play, download and edit the free video Xochimilco at Coaxial.

Lu Coy performs "Xochimilco (the place where the flowers grow)" Filmed August of 2020 at Coaxial Arts Foundation by Chloe Scallion.

This piece is based on translations of a 16th century codex of Nahuatl songs, in particular, song 44 “Teponazcuicatl” which is written from the point of view of an Aztec singer. The singer observes a Spanish priest standing at the waters edge of lake Texcoco, proclaiming the appearance of the Virgen de Guadalupe, thus signaling a turning point in the cultural genocide enacted against the indigenous people’s of what is now known as México. As the singer’s world becomes unrecognizable they find solace in the belief that they and their world shall live forever in the songs of their ancestors- “and come the day in future time when I am gone, this my flower song I leave behind. There with the Toltec songs, there I shall live. Yes I the singer shall walk and be forgot, there by the water, but my heartbeat shall live on in song. Listen to my song of joy! Our flowers are arisen, in this place of rain.”
All musical material from these songs have long since been destroyed, but by interacting with this text I hope to preserve a small piece of ancestral memory which has been buried under layers of colonial erasure. In my interpretation of this text, I run my voice through various harmonizer and distortion pedals to create a choir of voices which grows in size and intensity throughout the duration of the piece, in an attempt to keep alive the fading spirits and ancestors who have been lost for centuries.

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