Monumental

Monumental is a celebration of Mexico City’s burgeoning feminist movement, which protests femicide, domestic abuse, narco-gender-violence, and misogyny which are perpetrated at massive rates with impunity in Mexico. It responds to the conservative backlash to the (mainly purple-the color of the Mexican Women’s Movement) feminist graffiti on monuments. This video imagines what it would look like if the female monuments could talk, and what it would look like if Mexican society cared as much for female bodies as it does for its monuments. It was filmed at the Colegio de las Vizcaínas en Mexico City’s Historic Center.

Stephanie Sherman, Melissa Castro, Aitana Galaviz (MX)
Stephanie Sherman (San Francisco) is an interdisciplinary, international queer choreographer, educator, visual artist, poet and scholar with a passion for uniting diverse artist activist communities from Quito, Mexico City, and San Francisco to inspire social transformation. She is a professor of dance at Mills College in Oakland, CA. She has a PhD in Performance Studies from UC Berkeley, an MFA in Dance from Tisch School of the Arts, NYU, and is a two-time Fulbright Awardee (Mexico, 2018; Ecuador, 2006). Her video dances Entre Ojos, Manifiesta, Caída Libre and Pulso Menguante have won international awards and have been official selection in multiple festivals.

Melissa Castro (Mexico City) is a Mexican artist with an interest in dance as a visual and experiential art. She is a member of the Consejo Internacional de Danza, UNESCO. She has a BFA in Dance from the Universidad de las Américas Puebla (UDLAP). As a dancer, she has worked with Mexican and international artists such as: Stephanie Sherman, Xavier Villanova, Charles Anderson, Shannon Mockli and Cris Walker. Her work has been presented at the UDLAP and for the International Day of Dance Festival at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). ”Entre Ojos,” her video dance collaboration has been selected into 20 video dance festivals.

Aitana Galaviz (Mexico City) is a photographer, singer, and graphic designer. She graduated in Graphic Design from the la FES Acatlán, UNAM, and has studied music seriously. She is currently part of the editorial project Saca la Lengua, which seeks to give voice to visual artists and writers through digital and printed means like the fanzine. She has done corporate design for Médico Protegido, Buitre Amargo and Architecture Design Acoustics & Building, and has collaborated in the publicity for Ingrid Beaujean with whom she studies jazz.