The Heart of the Dancers. A journey to the heart of two worlds

Acoustic Art

Latin America - Europe: two cultures, two hearts? Iris Disse recorded pre-Hispanic instruments, Aztec texts and archaic dance rhythms in Mexico. With this sound material she takes us into a world where the heart sets the rhythm, literally and figuratively.

He recorded the heartbeats of Mexican dancers in direct acoustic implementation. As in life, phases of rest and movement mark the rhythm, merging with the sounds of ritual feasts and the sounds of an archaic people, with the music of the marimbists and the poetic wisdom of the Aztecs.

"The heart of the dancers", is a work that goes from the narrative to the
narration to the soundscape, from the theatrical representation of the pre-Hispanic world with readings of fragments of texts by Bernardino de Sahagún, to the search for a way to address questions about communication in the human being. 
In this work the music (with a mystical character by Jorge Reyes) introduces the listener to the indigenous world. All this sonorous construction that alludes to the heart in its title, was presented in the CD Estancias sonoras. Laboratorio de Experimentación Artística Sonora as "a poetic radio theater that arises with the idea of showing a world where the heart impregnates the rhythm of living... The heart is understood in different cultures as a synonym of the center of life in the world; of wisdom, intelligence, love and strength" (Radio Educación, 2006).  This work, produced by Radio Educación and Sender Freises Berlin, contains material from field recordings made in Teotihuacán and is the result of a post-production work by the German engineer Peter Avar, Disse's accomplice and creator of the Michoacán Soundscape, together with Jorge Reyes. This radio drama was also characterized by the real-time collaboration of four radio stations at the same time: Radio Educación, Radio UNAM, Horizonte 108 and Radioactivo. Cf. Benjamín Rocha (2004).