Journey to Mexico

On 10 January 1936, the poet, actor, and dramatic theorist, Antonin Artaud departed Europe on a journey to Mexico that would take him from the streets, caf s, and lecture halls of Mexico City to the remote mountains of the Sierra Tarahumara. The journey would last only ten months, culminating in some six to eight weeks spent among the Tarahumara (Rar muri), but it was a profound turning point in his life. Artaud didn't just leave Europe. He fled it. 'I came to Mexico to escape European civilization ... I hoped to find a vital form of culture.' The vital form of culture that he sought was one wherein individual and communal behaviors were rooted in the soil of a place, wherein the rituals of religion, reinforced a connection in human lives between the earth and the sun. But Artaud's search for a vital form of culture would not be a simple one. His appeal to indigenous culture would first require an intense and intricate effort at aesthetic, religious, political, and philosophical