Vol. xxvi #4

December, 2005

As I write this, I'm listening to the muchachos rehearse a new villancico. Well, new for us: it dates from about 1670 in Mexico. The villancico is the Iberian equivalent to the noel in France or the carol in England. Like the English carol, in its medieval origins it was a popular religious song; with time both forms came to be applied principally to Christmas-centered pieces.

Throughout the colonial era, music was at the center of the whole process of cultural crossbreeding or mestizaje. The Europeans, for example, discovered the Aztec forms of the chaconne and the sarabande, which the European composers quickly began to transform into a new mix; while indigenous American composers set out to transform European forms and instruments into something completely new. Among the first institutions to arise from the ashes of the Conquest were music schools for Indian students.

The colonial villancico was a central element in this musical mestizaje, and soon became a distinctive Latin American form. At first inspired by the Spanish polyphony of the high Renaissance and later by the Italian baroque, the European influence quickly receded into the background in the face of vibrant indigenous rhythms and influences.

I've long wanted to take a stab at some of the colonial villancicos, and we are finally doing it. It will be the finale of a new piece for Christmas, a contemporary pastorela or Shepherds' Play.

The pastorela is (arguably, of course) the first authentic "American" theatrical form, born and developed on the soils of the Americas as one of the foremost examples of mestizaje, along with the villancicos. The pastorela has its roots in the Jesuit theatre in Nueva España in the xvi century and it quickly became a popular tradition throughout the Mesoamerican region; the very existence of a Honduran national theatre springs from the pastorelas written by P. José Trinidad Reyes in Tegucigalpa in the 1850's.

The structure of a pastorela is simple and iconic. The shepherds are busy about their daily cares as they prepare to set out to the manger with their humble gifts for the babe. The devil tries to detour them from the path, but is conquered by St. Michael, the celestial warrior. So at the end they arrive and the babe is born anew into their (and our) contemporary world.

Our December schedule will incorporate this pastorela "Las Peripecias de un Costal", along with our traditional "Navidad Nuestra" and Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf" for the kids. We were well into the rehearsals of all three pieces when we had an unexpected visitor: tropical storm Gamma.

A look at the year seems to present us with a year defined by disasters, beginning with the tsunami in southern Asia. The teatro's first official activity in calendar year 2005 was the organization of an artistic marathon in the central plaza of Progreso to help raise funds for tsunami relief -- it was amazing how many clandestine wanna-be rap and reggaeton groups, singers and dancers came out of their barrio closets. Hurricanes Stan, Wilma and Beta caused extensive flooding in many regions of Honduras and Central America, but Progreso remained largely untouched until the end: Gamma rectified the omission by centering its visit here.

In between Tsunami and Gamma, the world's year was dotted with earthquakes, volcanoes and more hurricanes. The most spectacular of the latter, Katrina, didn't touch us directly; but we followed closely the events in New Orleans, a city that has a special relation to our zone. The banana companies came from New Orleans and brought with them its architectural style, well suited to this valley which shares many geographical traits. What was happening in New Orleans we understood only too well as a replay of our own experience of Hurricane Mitch in 1998. And there is -- or was -- a large Honduran community in New Orleans (the newspapers used the figure of 125,000), including families closely connected with the teatro.

The year's list of disasters includes human-made disasters as well: London's tube explodes, France burns, Iraq disintegrates. At the local level, innumerable teachers' strikes in the public school system have played havoc with our programs for children and adolescents; soaring fuel prices have played havoc with our budget. The most recent studies published by the United Nations show Honduras losing ground in the "war on poverty" not only in the strictly economic statistics but on every front: education, health, life expectancy, systemic corruption, "quality of life"; and perhaps most ill-boding in the long term, ecological.

In the midst of all this, how can we possibly concentrate on frivolous things like villancicos and pastorelas and capturing musical wolves? How can we and why do we celebrate Christmas?

Take a look at Pieter Bruegel's "Conversion of St. Paul": how long does it take you, amid all the visual hubbub, to FIND that guy that's been knocked off his horse? Or more to the immediate point, "The Numbering at Bethlehem": everyone is about their daily tasks, building a house, selling firewood, cooking a meal, downing a brew as they warm themselves by the fire in the pub. Kids skate on the pond and nobody notices that pair of strangers who are headed towards the census taker (who has already collected a nice pile of coins on his table).

That's what the pastorelas are really about: the shepherds are us, buried in the glut of everyday cares and petty quarrels and especially "What are we going to have for Christmas Eve supper?" We, like them, don't NEED a full-time devil to distract us, since we do an excellent job of it on our own.

And that's what Christmas is really about: taking a moment from all the personal and world busyness to breathe, to look, to listen. As a friend wrote recently:

I often think about how much a difference theater makes, in lifting the spirit, in making reality a bit more clear, in inviting us into something deeper. I know that your work touches people, especially the poorest and most forgotten of folks, in a powerful way.

So pull out your guitars and maracas and bongos and join our villancico:

Sharing together this night,
let us raise our voices in song.
To the newborn infant
sing ye tender praises.