The Long Count for El Sonido que Atraviesa at CCD
centrol cultural digital, mexico 2022
The Long Count as a choreo-sonic installation that reimagines the voices of pre-Hispanic wind instruments through contemporary synthesis, dance, and machine learning. Based on an archive of ancient Mayan aerophones, the piece applies musical information retrieval techniques to approximate their original tonal contexts, then builds new synthetic instruments that extend and transform their timbral legacies. Rather than reproducing these sounds through a Western historical frame, The Long Count invites them into a speculative ecology—one that resists tonal imposition and opens space for ancestral futures.
For El Sonido que Atraviesa, the piece unfolds across bodies and architectures: dancers move in dialogue with a spatialized sound installation, activating an acoustic landscape where gesture, breath, and material memory converge. The choreography and audio co-compose each other, forming a vibrational field where sonic inscriptions—both ancient and synthetic—are transmitted, interrupted, and reconfigured. This work listens beneath the surface of colonial time, toward what endures, transforms, and sounds again.
