Brujo De La Mancha

Brujo De La Mancha

Brujo De La Mancha has been performing for over five years as the Cofounder of Ollin Yoliztli Calmecac, Philadelphia’s only arts organization to teach indigenous Mexican culture, language and dance. At Philly Against War’s Rally and Cultural Affair, Brujo will perform traditional music and dance with children from a workshop he teaches.

I am an multidisciplinary, self-taught artist. Born in Mexico City, into a mixed family of Mexican Indigenous and Spanish working class. In my childhood during visits to my father’s family around Xico, Veracruz in Mexico, I experienced the surviving Mayan, Olmec and Catholic cultures: traditional farming, and popular crafts that represent and express the life of the indigenous Mexican people. Later, I cultivated a sense of freedom to express my personal dreams and reality by immersing myself in indigenous cultures in the states of Oaxaca, Veracruz, Puebla, Michoacan and Tlaxcala. I grew up believing and experiencing independent thinking, realizing that people are rich in resourcefulness in their own power for self-control. My paternal grandmother migrated from Xico, Veracruz to Mexico City before I was born, and I have continued this family experience with my own migration to Philadelphia PA. USA, on February of 1998, where I have joined the diversity of lives and cultural exchanges of this city. In Mexico, a great emphasis is placed on the connection between human beings and the natural world. In 2007, I got my Aztec name “Tletxayacoatl” (The Snake with the Face on Fire) in a summer solstice ceremonial in Chicago with Master “Ocelocoatl” (The jaguar & Snake) and Master “Xavier Quijas Yxayotl”. I also won a grant from The Institute for Cultural Partnership to learn how to make “Tlapizcalli” Clay flutes, with the Master “ Xavier Quijas Yxayotl”. This has been the first time that I have received some training in art, and yet I later went on to make a clay instrument, of my own called “Ehekachiktli” -The Dead Whistle- an instrument that is very old.

For more information, videos and sound bytes:

http://www.ollinyoliztlicalmecac.org/
http://www.brujodelamancha.com/
http://www.myspace.com/292534627

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