The Physics of the Mola: W/riting Indigenous Resurgence on the Contemporary Stage

Since 1991, a movement undertaken by Indigenous theatre workers on this continent has been steadily growing. These artists are actively mining their nations' knowledge systems for the building materials with which to construct singularly Indigenous, nation-specific works that serve the communities and the biotas out of which those knowledge systems emerge. My purpose in this article is to consider the evolution of these investigations in the works of Spiderwoman Theater and Monique Mojica and the Chocolate Woman Collective. The article posits the mola - one material instance of, and repository for, an ancient Indigenous knowledge system - as an animating force that shapes and directs the process of creation and execution of contemporary works of the urban (and perhaps dislocated) artists who are now the daughters and granddaughters of the Revolucion Tule.