Grappling with the history of Western architects using Indigenous motifs without significant reference to or engagement with their source, the film works to restore these absent sounds, utilizing 3D-printed replicas of Maya wind instruments held behind glass in pre-Columbian museum collections.
Told through the personal histories of its Maya protagonists, the film begins with K’iche’- Kaqchiquel poet Rosa Chávez as she leads us through her Guatemalan community’s vernacular architectures. Through poetry and conversation, she traces a densely interwoven set of practices that have long articulated and preserved systematic understandings of time, language, and cosmology across cultural forms. These range from ancient temples to systems of healing, and from weaving techniques whose patterns encode complex information to the physical structure of the traditional ‘temazcal’ steam room. As if in echo, the film follows Ixil Maya artist Tohil Fidel Brito Bernal inside the "Mayan Revival" Sowden House in Los Angeles, as he works on his rigorously researched drafts of ancient Maya glyphs and calendars while surrounded by sculptural copies of the same motifs appropriated by the architect Lloyd Wright (Jr.).
The poetry and artwork of Chávez and Brito Bernal is interwoven by spirited performances of the replica instruments by Mexican flautist Alethia Lozano Birrueta. Each breath played through tiny bird ocarinas and flutes that sculpturally represent monkey, jaguar, and other deities of Maya mythology, activates layers of music that expand the slippery temporalities of the film’s themes and which are heightened further through the film’s vibrant visual effects. Premiering in EMPAC’s concert hall, where several of Birrueta’s performances were recorded, Before the Volcano Sings seeks to reclaim space for Indigenous traditions in the present. The film’s score and sound design are by composer Michelle Agnes Magalhães.
– Vic Brooks
Commissioned by the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center at Rensselaer – EMPAC.
Mojo’q che b’ixan ri ixkanulab’/Antes de que los volcanes canten/Before the Volcanoes Sing, 2022
digital video (color, sound)
64:17 min
Producers: Clarissa Tossin and Vic Brooks
Poet: Rosa Chávez
Calligrapher/Artist: Tohil Fidel Brito Bernal
Flutist: Alethia Lozano Birrueta
Cinematographer: Jeremy Glaholt
Editors: Andrew van Baal, Clarissa Tossin, and Ryan Jenkins
Composer and Sound Design: Michelle Agnes Magalhães
Rerecording mixer and Ambisonics: Jeff Svatek
Color: Ryan Jenkins
3D Scan and Modeling Instrument Replicas: Jared Katz
3D Printing: Kwambio, Ukraine
Classical Maya Hieroglyphs: Tohil Fidel Bernal
Subtitles: Paulina Ascencio Fuentes