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"Monkey Business Brings
Traditional Stories to Life"
Indian Country Today
SAN CRISTÓBAL, Mexico - Under the bright lights of an outdoor
basketball court in the rugged Sierra Madre of southern Mexico,
a poor campesino and his wife gesture in silence. Their hushed words
float off like a plume of wood-smoke in the frigid air at 5,000
feet above sea level. When a stagehand crawls out and sheepishly
passes them a microphone, the world suddenly comes alive.
The audience roars. It's the first night of the annual Maya-Zoque
Festival of Indian arts, held last November in the Chiapan village
of Coapilla. "Workers in the Other World," a tragi-comedy about
the high hopes of Mexican Indian migrants to the United States,
is leading the card.
The theater, called Monkey Business, is unconventional and so is
their bag of stories. Tonight's audience will see a slice of the
American dream rarely shown north of the Rio Grande: the emigrant's
story of hardship and loss...
March 19, 2003
Additional
articles
by Philip Burnham that have appeared in Indian Country Today
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