Chapter 2: Volar. Una Historia Familiar - Flying. A Family History

This book is the result of a project entitled Volar. Una historia familiar, made possible through the support of the Programme for Support of Municipal and Community Cultures (PACMyC) of the State of Puebla, Mexico promoted and coordinated by a group of Voladores from Cuetzalan del Progreso in collaboration with anthropologist and editorial designer Karol Gonzalez and myself.

The book traces the evolution of the Danza de los Voladores, a pre-Hispanic ritual which is still practised in the municipality of Cuetzalan del Progreso, located in the Sierra Norte of Puebla, Mexico, through the perspectives of a family of voladores.

Jorge Baltazar, 68, began flying more than 55 years ago. He has been an innovative and charismatic volador, the first to allow women to participate in the ritual and to teach several children from the region how to fly. He is one of the most famous and respected voladores in Cuetzalan and is also the representative of the Cuapatanini group, made up of his relatives and other voladores from the neighbourhood of Cuapech, Cuetzalan.

His daughters, Georgina, Marisol, Hermelinda and Carina, challenged stereotypes that portrayed women as too weak or too feminine to participate in the dance. They were the first female voladoras to travel abroad. Jorge Baltazar’s grandchildren, the new generation of voladores, carry this ancient legacy forward and are already writing the history of the dance for the future. The Baltazar family is one of the few families in Cuetzalan with three active generations of voladores, and their experiences offer a personal testimony to almost a century of the ritual’s development.

This project wants to be a living archive of the dance: an opportunity to observe the evolution of a cultural practice through the lived experiences of its practitioners, and to preserve the knowledge of a ritual that, particularly for the local Masehual population, represents a means of political reivindication.

Editors: Karol González Chaparro and Valeria Luongo
Research and writing: Valeria Luongo and Karol González Chaparro
Photography: Valeria Luongo
Editorial design: Karol González Chaparro

Printed in Puebla, Mexico. Casa de Hydra Editores