RiTUAL. A ceremonial act ~ Rites used in the course of worship ~ The performance of ceremonial acts ~ The prescribed form of conducting the ceremony ~ A method of procedure that is followed without variation ~ performance with gestures, words, and objects, often in a sequestered place.
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Susana Vizcarra is an Uruguayan-American writer and professor of literature and languages. Her three books represent three stanzas, having to do with the rituals of writing, painting, singing and dancing that are represented in Mayan art. The three books are referred to as “codices,” (singular “codex”) to reflect the Mayan way of keeping information, which was in books made mostly from the inner bark of the fig tree. Spanish conquerors systematically destroyed works of art like the Mayan codices, and today only three known Mayan codices survive: the Dresden codex, the Paris codex and the Madrid codex. Each handmade book represents a dream of different levels of associations: words and numbers, Flora and Fauna and the Mayan gods.
Book 1 – Myth Codex- contains cutout of images from the Dresden Codex and from ceramics. The cover has the cutout of a Mayan deity, popping out of the page. The interior pages represent a scene of Mayan Ritual Dance, images superposed; emphasize the movement of the dance and music. The book represents the first stanza of the poem “Mayan Dreams”
