Honoring My Ancestral Roots with Danza del Venado
A New and Sudden Approach
My new image Danza del Venado, which I just launched in my Fall 2025 gallery, has taken me into some new directions as a photographer. This project came together very quickly in both shooting and editing. Shot on my Sony a6400 camera, this photo quickly started to become something else in my mind. I grew up in Mexico, and to me, Mexico will always embody who I am, and it's the place that is home for me. It's the home of my indigenous ancestors, many of whom I cannot name (thanks to the gaps that colonization and genocide left behind), but one which I feel deep in my flesh.
A Ritual Dance of my Ancestors
The original indigenous dance of "danza del venado" comes from the region of Sonora: one person dances as the deer (venado), while four musicians play drums and sing, in in an act of constellating the cosmos and achieving inner knowledge. This dance is still performed to this day as part of indigenous spiritual traditions, and I have seen it performed a few times in my lifetime.
I used my own form from the original photograph as a way to express movement and the elasticity that dancing brings not just to the body, but to the heart and mind. Dancing is a gift from nature, and we are lucky as humans to have the ability to create music and to sing while we also use our whole body to dance. Dance brings a new freedom to the human consciousness, but it also must be respected. In this composition, I imply clearly that there are much larger forces than ourselves, and these forces most often mean to do good for us, but if they are disturbed or disrespected, there are consequences. This motif is also evident in my Coil book series, where the human characters actually get to engage in dialogue and relationship with these forces. In the world of a novel, it is possible to make those conversations happen. But in the world of photography, I choose to do it through symbol and form. It's an alchemical inheritance that I personally comes to me primarily through the indigenous roots of my own bloodline, and this piece is a way of honoring my ancestors.
My Process
Danza del Venado was shot on a Sony a6400, edited with Lightroom and manipulated with Photoshop. I chose to work with the black spandex mask and the sheer and glorious textures of pantyhose ito bring an ethereal element to the legs, as a way to imply movement of the dance. The mask is an important motif that I continue to explore as a way to link myself back to the use of masks in ritual, war and art in pre-Columbian America.
You Can Bring It Home and Wear it.
If you enjoy this piece and you would like to support my work as an artist, please consider buying this piece as a t-shirt in my store. If you would prefer for me to make it available as a meta print for hanging in your home, please contact me. I do make select pieces available depending on requests from patrons.
As we approach the end of the Fall 2025 season, I am discovering many new directions in my photography work.