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Mexico The Critic The Rivera Murals The Casa Azul Jet-lag Festival Screening The Trotsky Museum Exile Profound Mexico Hope Rain on canvas The Jury The Anthropological Museum Time Political Correctness Two Houses False Virtue Life is a miracle Weird Roots The Meeting Turtles Can Fly The Oscars Luis Barragans house Back to Diary Index |
The Anthropological Museum A visit to the museum everyone says I must see. I squeeze some time out of the schedule to drag myself through the scorching heat. A short stone staircase up to the entrance leaves me gasping for breath, for I have not yet adjusted to the altitude ( Glazed and dazed by beauty and information we stagger out of the museum to return to the cool dark of the cinema once more; but on the way down the stone steps we see that an ancient ritual is about to be performed for tourists, school parties and those passing by. It is only a handful of us that sit down to watch, but five men climb (without safety harnesses) to a small structure at the top of an impossibly tall mast, which sways slightly in the hot, still air. Then, to the piercing mournful sound of a pipe played by one of the men who sits perched on the very top of the rotating structure, the four others slowly descend, head first, suspended on ropes attached to their feet, swinging out and around, slowly, hypnotically, vertiginously, until they reach the ground. back next |
Mayan sculpture Tommy Cooper look-a-like Aerial ritual |
Text © Sally Potter. All pictures © Adventure Pictures unless otherwise indicated |