1. Festival and Performance In Urban Maya Centers Caitlin Walker Urbanism In the Archaeological Record

2. The Maya Area

3. Timeline of Ancient Maya Civilization Preclassic Period: 2000 BC-250 AD (Late Preclassic: 300 BC-250 AD) Early Classic Period: 250-600 AD Late Classic Period: 600-900 AD Post Classic Period: 900-1530 AD

4. The Classic Maya Urban Experience Stepped platforms with masonry superstructures Limestone block and plaster construction Central plazas a theme of urban planning

5. The Urban Experience: City Planning

6. The Ceremonial Center

7. Defining Performance “Performance is a mode of communicative behavior” (Inomata and Coben 2006) “Something creative, realized, achieved, even transcendent of the ordinary course of events” (Hymes 1975) “What makes performance is qualities that are consciously recognized by performers and observers…performance is cultural behavior for which a person assumes responsibility to an audience” (Inomata and Coben 2006)

8. Spectacle and Theater Spectacle = “sensory overload” –“Above all, spectacle is flashy, loud, smelly or fragrant, long-winded, momentous” (Houston 2006) Theater encompasses aspects of both performance and spectacle, and can have political, social, and ideological motivations and implications

9. Religious Aspects of Maya Theatricality Cosmovision: “The ways in which cultures combine their cosmological notions relating to time and space into a cosmological whole” (Carrasco) “Hard Nucleus” of cosmovision: a complex of cosmological ideas that are resistant to historical change

10. Religious Aspects of Maya Theatricality World Making: Building the cosmos –Construction of ceremonial centers in replication of the cosmos World Centering: Activating the cosmos –Sacrifice and auto-sacrifice in replications of mythological world-centering events World Renewal: Perpetuating the cosmos –Ritual offering, pilgrimage, ceremonial dance or oration

11. Political Aspects of Maya Theatricality Elites were primarily responsible for the preparation, organization, and execution of public theatrical events Elites often acted as performers of dance and oration, re-enactements of mythological events, and ceremonial tasks such as sacrifice or auto-sacrifice

12. Public Ceremony and the Built Environment The Main Plaza, pyramid temples, and palaces served as “performance areas” Monuments were constructed to commemorate both mythological events and ceremonial re-enactments of mythological events The constructed ceremonial center also served as the social and political center of a site

13. Ceremonial Center as Performance Area

14. Monuments to Performance

17. Public Ceremony in the Contact Period Spanish conquistadors and missionaries of the 16th century recorded elaborate ceremonial events among the Yucatec Maya similar to those depicted in Classic Maya artwork While not on as grand a scale, Post-Classic Maya towns maintained a central plaza and ceremonial center that reflected back to the principles of the Mesoamerican Cosmovision

18. Public Ceremony Among the Maya Today Endurance of cosmological concepts and practices among traditional communities Syncratism of traditional beliefs with Euro/Christian beliefs Endurance of public ceremony, both traditional/shamanistic and Catholic