La historia del Yucuate

Proyecto YIVI is an arts education, creation, and outreach initiative developed with children and young people from the Mixteca Alta region of Oaxaca, Mexico. It is coordinated by Luisa Pardo and Pedro Pizarro, with the support of countless collaborators. The project was established in Santo Domingo Yanhuitlán in February 2016. Since then, it has been dedicated to offering free workshops in performing arts, audiovisual media, visual arts, and architecture, while also producing materials for exhibitions and live performances.

This project was developed over the course of several months. It began with a series of workshop-laboratories led by seven collaborators who have worked with Proyecto YIVI, each contributing creative tools in areas such as transmedia, animation (including pixilation, cut-out animation, and other techniques), narrative practices, research (interviews, documentation, etc.), performance and acting, photography and video, and object-making.

Throughout the process, we went on excursions to the nearby hills, held performance improvisation sessions, and the children gradually developed their characters. At different stages, the group worked independently on writing the script, followed by feedback sessions with the same collaborators who had led the initial workshops.

In our workspace, we built all the elements used in both the animation and the costumes and props. The editing and post-production stages were carried out by a smaller team, although the young participants who wished to do so were also involved in the process. Rough cuts were screened for the children, their families, and the collaborators, whose feedback informed the final version of the film.