Music: Triumph at Quetzalcoatl

In Mexico City, audiences cheered the first collaboration of three of Mexico’s most gifted sons: Composer Carlos Chávez, Painter Miguel Covarrubias and Dancer José Limón. Their epic ballet, Los Cuatro Soles (The Four Suns), was the brilliant opener of a three-week national dance festival.

Chávez and Covarrubias have long been fascinated with the Aztec legend of the Four Suns. Chávez, in fact, composed an orchestral program piece about it in 1925. The legend: the earth was created and destroyed four times by each of the elements —water, air, fire and earth (through drought). Last fall, Covarrubias showed Dancer Limón some sketches for sets and costumes, convinced him he was just the man to do the choreography. Limón liked the subject, thought it might lead to “the kind of [dance] movement that is my meat.”

For Limón himself, there was a toothsome part as the benign god Quetzalcoatl. He grapples in conflict throughout the four cycles of creation and destruction with the malignant god Tezcatlipoca (Lucas Hoving). In the end, Quetzalcoatl triumphs and the earth is saved.

What an opening-night audience saw in brilliant action was probably the biggest dance company assembled west of Moscow. Against Covarrubias’ huge, color-splashed drops, 64 masked dancers tumbled, twisted and stretched. In the final ceremonial dance of thanks, they were reinforced by a corps of musclemen from a local physical education school. With 65 musicians and a chorus of 36 to play and chant Chávez’ powerful rhythmic music, the effect was volcanic.