Description: The program will look at varying traditions of dance-dramas that exist today in Oaxaca and in different parts of Mexico and those corresponding ceremonial dance events performed in New Mexico and border areas. Although these ritualized dances have evolved over the centuries in different ways and with somewhat different meanings, many common aspects persist and relate to the conquest of Mexico and that historic encounter of Spanish and Indigenous people. Included are several cultural icons who participate in the events: La Malinche (the interpreter/guide/mistress of Hernan Cortez), Montezuma (the Aztec monarch), a troop of costumed, energetic dancers often called Danzantes de la Pluma and Matachines, and the silent, guiding presence of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

Presenter: As a professionally trained art conservator, Bettina Raphael has worked with ethnographic, archaeological and historic artifacts for the past 40 years. After early training at the Smithsonian and the Birmingham Museum in England, she has spent much of her career working with museums and collectors in Santa Fe, NM, which has included a focus on the interesting historic links between customs and ceremonial dramas of New Mexico and Oaxaca.