They propose to stop romanticizing the loneliness of mothers and grandmothers who care for them.

▲ The two large hoops that appear on stage represent emotionally charged symbols. They are a threshold, a passage between past and present; they represent the physical and psychological confinement in which the women in the play have lived for years , the playwright indicated. Photo by Luis Castillo

Daniel López Aguilar

La Jornada Newspaper, Monday, July 14, 2025, p. 2

Not even the persistent rain could deter the audience that filled the Orientación Luisa Josefina Hernández Theater on Thursday night, where the first performance of The Dogs Who Only Recognized Petticoats took place.

Written and directed by Mayra Simón, the production brought together special guests and representatives of the press.

The story tells the story of four elderly women - Luisa, Teresa, Maura and Tomasa - who are single and childless, and who live independently in Manzanitas Cieneguilla, Cardonal, Hidalgo, a town with barely enough room for 12 souls.

Their stories intertwine in a cycle where perpetual obedience prevails, childhoods are snatched away, migrations become forced, and broken relationships persist. The care for parents and siblings, along with the attachment to material things, outlines an existential map in which love always seems conditional or absent.

Two large rings, more than just a scenic device, represent emotionally charged symbols.

Mayra Simón defined them as "a threshold, a step between past and present; they represent the physical and psychological confinement in which these women have lived for years.

The embroidery they evoke is not only repetition, it is also creative resistance, an attempt to rescue what seemed lost, a way of connecting with something of one's own within confinement.

The acting work of Edna Rodríguez, Sharim Padilla, Araceli Martínez, and Fabiola Villalpando interweaves moments of mischief and tenderness that bring smiles, but also invite silence.

During the performance, phrases such as: We are all fragile in the wrong hands , What good is money if you're unhappy? and You only have yourself resonated.

In an interview with La Jornada, Simón shared the origins of the production: "After the death of my grandmother, who was like a mother to me, I discovered hidden secrets. She was a child stolen from her community, La Misión, in Hidalgo. I felt guilty for not having listened or provided a space for her grief, which she kept out of modesty and for her family.

The piece emerged then as an act of listening to my aunts, an effort to reconnect with their stories as a form of resistance to the silence I experienced in my family.

The playwright and director added that the plot "is a cry for forgiveness. A call to stop romanticizing the loneliness of older adults as if it were a choice; rather, it is a consequence of caring for others."

I want the viewer to value those lives, because we often only think about keeping the elderly alive, not the quality of their lives. I conceived this project as a docu-fiction. My first filter was my aunts. If they didn't recognize themselves in this work, I wouldn't take it anywhere.

Therefore, each element in the scene seeks to reflect the lives of these families and the community of Manzanitas; additionally, audio recordings were integrated with real memories to achieve an aesthetic symbiosis between the authentic and the dramatic .

The title of the work encapsulates a fragment of memory. When Mayra Simón was a child, a Rottweiler attacked her. However, her aunt Luisa managed to rescue her and stood in front of the animal, resulting in bites on her back.

For years, the playwright was plagued by a fear of dogs. Upon returning to Manzanitas to conceive this project, she encountered a pack of dogs that ran toward her, but some neighbors shouted, "They won't hurt you; these dogs recognize petticoats ."

It was a magical moment , he recalled. That care, that recognition, is what we want to convey to the viewer .

The stage proposal, Simón explained, explores a structure that transcends generations and territories. It doesn't matter if they're from Querétaro, Mexico City, or Chiapas. The stories of sacrifice and care of our mothers and grandmothers remain anchored in a persistent sexist structure .

During the performance, it was revealed how these women have gone through cycles of sacrifice. These are lives spent between rejection, migration, the fear of failure, resigned care, courage, but also the search for a happiness that deviates from the aspirations imposed by society , she concluded.

The rain stopped and the venue filled with applause. For several minutes, the sound that accompanied the arrival of the audience gave way to another, filled with appreciation.

Produced by the Manzanitas Escena company, the play "The Dogs Who Only Recognized Petticoats" will be presented Thursdays and Fridays at 8:00 p.m., Saturdays at 7:00 p.m., and Sundays at 6:00 p.m. at the Orientación Luisa Josefina Hernández Theater, in the Centro Cultural del Bosque (Reforma and Campo Marte). Tickets cost 150 pesos, with the usual discounts. The performance is recommended for ages 13 and up.

▲ The volume is illustrated by Eulogia Merle. Photo courtesy of the publisher.

Anaís Ruiz López

La Jornada Newspaper, Monday, July 14, 2025, p. 3

Despite his grandmother Felipa's warnings, 11-year-old Balam splashes around in a pond deep in the woods. While he plays, he thinks about his father, who left for the United States, and reflects on his future: soon he will have to leave the jungle and the white butterflies to attend high school in another town, far from his home and his grandmother. This is the starting point of the book The Jungle Pact, written by MJ Hernández (Mexico City, 1955), illustrated by Eulogia Merle, and published by U-Tópicas.

In an interview with La Jornada, the author explained that this proposal was born from a trip 30 years ago to the Los Chimalapas region of Oaxaca, "a fairly inaccessible place; you get there by taking many buses and, in the end, a "troca," as they call it. Its nature and the low fog are dazzling. We went to the town festival a few days ago, where I was able to observe many of the things described in this story, like a white pond that, upon getting closer, I discovered owed its color to the hundreds of butterflies perched on the water."

That landscape also revealed the environmental and social deterioration the area has suffered. I was deeply impressed by the impact of deforestation, and by the distress of the people faced with the invasion of mines, which have obtained permits to exploit the forest, as well as logging. "There is some of the most precious wood in the world and wildlife that only exists there ," he described.

Hernández explained that the inhabitants of that region have very little hope of recovering their lands; however, some older people, based on their traditions, "maintain the illusion that the jaguar, a legendary creature, could return and rescue the forest, as it has done since time immemorial, when it protected the Zoque people of Oaxaca and the animals. This indigenous group was very combative during the colonization; they managed to collect a bowl of gold and bought their independence from the Crown."

In the story, the white butterflies symbolize Balam's dreams, but they also represent protection. It seemed to me that, by playing with them and ignoring the world, the boy reflected all his dreams and hopes. But they also helped him think about his future, to imagine a different life, not somewhere else. All these ideas help him move forward, take away his fear, and strengthen him.

The founder of the U-Tópicas bookstore explained that when she visited the area, there were many families "whose family members had emigrated, initially to the capital cities, but later to the United States. That became the life project of children and young people. They no longer think about anything that holds them back. It's a phenomenon that people don't want to see, which is why I'm very interested in having this story reach parents, teachers, and guardians, so they have the opportunity to address these issues. In rural communities, this is commonplace and is increasing."

Furthermore, there's interference from organized crime. When I went there were already some established groups, but people could decide whether to participate. Most weren't interested; now you can't say no. The idea is to get children and young people talking about it. It's a neglected topic because it's sensitive or upsetting, but if we address it, perhaps we could propose solutions. Unfortunately, the more common the problem, the sadder it is , he said.

For the writer, it is necessary to address these issues with children from a position of equals, not as a clown's language, but as a person's language, so that they think, reflect, and can create a better life for all .

Hernández announced that she's working on a version of the book in the Zoque language of Oaxaca, since, in some ways, this story was fostered by that people. Zoque is a beautiful language; it's like a song .

The Jungle Pact is available in bookstores.

Merry Macmasters

La Jornada Newspaper, Monday, July 14, 2025, p. 3

In Drifts of Sculptural Form: Irruption and Density, an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MAM), sculpture is not an extra , as is sometimes the case, but the protagonist. The exhibition of 41 works by 38 artists, 17 of whom are women, establishes a generational dialogue that stretches from 1927 to the present.

Works by Germán Cueto, Mardonio Magaña, Luis Ortiz Monasterio, Mathias Goeritz, and Helen Escobedo share the space with creations by Paloma Torres, Rosario Guillermo, Laura Anderson Barbata, Aurora Noreña, and Jorge Ismael Rodríguez, among others. Of the pieces included, 14 are from the MAM collection; the rest are from other museums' and private collections.

"Drifts..." doesn't address the history of sculpture; rather, it's about the ongoing diversity of its production , says Katnira Bello, curator with Silverio Orduña. The exhibition was inspired by the sculpture biennials and triennials held by the National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature, as the award-winning works were channeled to its museums, such as the MAM.

These include: The Hammock by Francisco Zúñiga, winner of the 1957 Annual Sculpture Salon in Mexico City; Woman by Elizabeth Catlett and Chi by Kiyoshi Takahashi, winners of the Second National Sculpture Biennial in 1964; Torso by Peter Knigge, which received the Melchor Ocampo Award at the Third National Biennial in 1967; Someday Crazy by Kiyoto Ota, winner of the 1979 Sculpture Triennial; and Pronobis by Reynaldo Velázquez, winner of the same competition in 1985.

According to Bello, the central theme of Derivas… is how sculpture occupies and transforms space, how it generates something around it and how the viewer perceives it . Towards this end, the circular rooms of the venue worked in its favor: Instead of fighting with the room, as sometimes happens in some exhibitions, we wanted it to envelop or bring the pieces together , which explains the way in which the sculpture bursts in, without forgetting the body of the artist who works with the material, so that the work appears, and the bodies of the visitors to the room .

Conceptually, the exhibition is divided into four axes: Material Approximations, which deals with the selection of the work's material and its implications; Explorations of Form, which reflects the back and forth between the figurative and the abstract; Production of Space, an axis related to the way the three-dimensional work visits space; and Questioning the Medium, which consists of pieces more closely related to contemporary processes. The idea is for these threads of approximation to crisscross the room from one side to the other .

The MAM's sculpture garden features 85 works. To create a dialogue with the pieces in Derivas…, the curtains covering half of the gallery's windows have been drawn to make them visible.

The exhibition seeks "the greatest possible equality, because sometimes people think there are no female sculptors; however, there are many. The piece that occupies the center of the room is by Yvonne Domenge (1946-2019)," Bello emphasizes. Other artists included are: Naomi Siegmann, María Lagunes, Maribel Portela, Geles Cabrera, Ángela Gurría, Ana Pellicer, Perla Krauze, Cynthia Gutiérrez, Hilda Palafox, and Claudia Luna.

Drifts of Sculptural Form: Irruption and Density will remain at the MAM (Paseo de la Reforma corner Gandhi, first section of Chapultepec Park) until September 28.