WHITE EYES : Trance Rituals & Dance in Mexico

WHITE EYES : A multi-disciplinary research project examining trance rituals in Mexico

(version en Français en bas)

FINAL GOAL : $8,300 (although GoFundMe starts it automatically at $2,200)

Dear friends, family, fans and mentors -

I’m soliciting your support for an international project I’ve been constructing for the past several years that examines indigenous trance practices around the world for the purposes of healing.

From February to April 2025, I embark on the research phase of the project, WHITE EYES, taking place in Mexico. The title is inspired by the anthropologist Margaret Wiener, who observed that indigenous people referred to the Dutch colonizers as having ‘white eyes’ : meaning blind to the world of the divine.

WHITE EYES is a transdisciplinary project bridging ancient Mexican dance rituals, anthropology, and neuroscience through playful choreographic protocols that seek to dismantle the ego with the intention of opening a portal to the Divine. The “Divine” being something we co-define, something universal we tap into by means of morphic resonance and entangled consciousness. Inspired by my findings in Mexico, I hope to create neo-performance-rituals that promote the emergence of the “diffuse, fluid self” – that is, a self unbound by societal and cultural formatting –

in the hopes of mending the schism introduced by colonialism and other oppressive powers, fostering lasting connections between individuals from different cultural and political backgrounds.

Where did this project come from? What is the research about?

This project began nearly a decade ago when I first experienced trance during an African dance workshop by choreographer Elsa Wolliaston. Years later, battling a chronic illness, I explored alternative remedies in Sri Lanka, apprenticing under an Ayurvedic doctor and learning plant medicine, meditation, and mystic practices. Dance became my path to recovery, inspiring research into ancient rituals and ceremonies used worldwide to address physical, psychological, and spiritual afflictions, particularly in reconnecting individuals to their communities.

In Mexico, I’m especially drawn to the Zapotec limpia purification and healing rituals for treating susto (trauma, illness, fright, the loss or separation of one’s soul), the Aztec Concheros trance-inducing dance performances, and the figures depicted on ancient Mayan ceramics, which anthropologist Felicitas Goodman identified as “ritual instructions” : in that, if one were to adopt the postures of the figures depicted, one could live a transcendental experience. In Mexico City, I plan to study the Mayan ceramic collection in the National Museum of Anthropology and create a group dance laboratory to test Goodman’s thesis by embodying these postures as choreographic scores.

Inspired by the Zapotec healing practices as creative responses for restoring harmony and a dignified sense of belonging, I am intrigued by the idea that rituals could mend the schism introduced by colonialism and other oppressive powers. That entering a trance, collectively, may be the very solution to eradicating fear, reshaping perception and dismantling fixed worldviews that confine and divide us.

From a neuroscientific perspective, numerous studies have proven that practices such as dance, meditation, and rituals can significantly alter brain patterns, create new neural pathways, and enhance memory (especially in people suffering from Alzheimers or dementia). The Concheros dance of the Aztecs, with its rhythmic music, precise choreography, and spiritual transcendence, epitomizes this potential, allowing dancers to move beyond individual selfhood and connect with ancestral and numinous realms.

I hope to combine all of my empirical and field research in Mexico into both a community workshop and a performance piece. Based on my research on Mayan ceramics in Mexico City and my lived experiences in Oaxaca where I will partake in a peyote ceremony, I hope to create a workshop that engages locals to reappropriate Zapotec, Mayan, and their personal history and transpose it into a choreographic fresco. In the ensuing months, I plan to secure a creative residency in France to graft my research into a performance that recounts my personal endeavors and invites audience members to question their own relationship to wellness, ancestral practices, and community. And to come full circle, I hope to return to Mexico the following year to work with the indigenous women of the Fundacion EnVia in Oaxaca to render the images created in 2025 from the neo-rituals onto ceramics using traditional techniques.

How am I executing this? Why I need your help!

I have been selected for the 2025 artist residency ERROR in Mexico City – a program that is a collaborative laboratory for artists that, among its main objectives, has the purpose of thinking and doing collectively.

This residency is a crucial part in the development of WHITE EYES in that they offer :

All of these elements are fundamental in the success of getting lift off with this project, especially due to its interdisciplinary, complex nature. I would greatly benefit from a structured mentorship by ERROR and their offer to connect me with other cultural agents / anthropologists in their expansive network in Mexico.

The residency costs $30,000MXN (so approx: $1,464 USD).

I have received a generous grant from DOS MARES - a curatorial platform based in Marseille - that will partially fund the project.

Prior to my residency in Mexico City, I will spend a month in Oaxaca where I am working with indigenous women in partnership with the Fundacion EnVia. This field-research will also entail traveling to remote indigenous villages and participating in healing rituals, such as Temazcal or the limpia ritual of the Zapotecs. I hope to also teach a dance/trance workshop to the local youth in partnership with the Centro de Aprendizaje inspired by the workshops LIGHT BODY that I’ve been teaching in France for the past three years.

I need your help in funding the residency fees, travel costs, the month-long field research in Oaxaca which entails hiring guides/interpreters, renting a flat in Oaxaca, attending a dance training intensive in Mazunte to deepen my knowledge about trance-dance practices, health insurance, production costs, taxis, per diems and the hiring of a local videographer to document the process. The list of expenses is long If you would like to see a spreadsheet detailing all of the costs, send me a message and I’ll share with you the Excel file!

Although I have been tirelessly applying for grants and subsidies, the project still needs financial support– all and any contributions will be deeply appreciated, every little bit counts!

What do you get in return?

Throughout my stay here I will be taking photographs/making sketches/shooting videos that document my process. If things go according to plan, I will release a poetic, visual review of my research realized in Mexico. Furthermore, for those who have participated in the campaign funding, you will receive a special thank you in my newsletter as well as on my Instagram page.

For donations of $50 or more, you’ll receive a postcard from Mexico!

I also hope to keep a sketchbook of the Mayan artefacts, medicinal plants, and ritualistic objects I encounter during my travels. I’d like to offer these sketches as tattoos, that for donations above $150 you would have free access to any art you’d like to ink to your body! The sketches will be published online where you can select any drawing of your choice.

For donations of $300 or more, I will make a dance video to the song of your choice shot in whatever venue I find myself in in Mexico (be that the desert, the mountains, the museum, the city, in a cactus field, who knows!). The video will be dedicated to you and posted on my Instagram – sort of like this one!

For donations of $500 or more I offer a one-on-one guided Yoga Nidra session via Zoom (or in person if we can manage!). Yoga Nidra is a state of conscious deep relaxation, similar to hypnosis, where guided meditation leads the mind into a trance-like state, allowing profound rest and regeneration—often said to provide the restorative benefits of six hours of sleep in just one hour. No prior experience necessary, the session is conducted lying down with a mask over your eyes and a set of headphones. I am a certified Yoga Nidra teacher and have been teaching classes since 2017.

For donations of $1000 or more, I will contact you personally with a custom gift-package catered to your interests / geographic location.

Thank you, thank you, and thank you again : your support means the world to me! With a little help, this dream can become a reality!

About the Artist : Kathryn Marshall

I am a visual artist, dancer and storyteller working primarily in the field of performance. With a transdisciplinary approach, I create itinerant and interactive pieces at the intersection of art, science, and spirituality that question the relationship we have with our environment and with ourselves. Using humor and play as tools for deconstructing our dualistic relationship to the material world, I offer the public ways to emancipate themselves from black-and-white thinking.

I became interested in vulnerability as a means to foster connection following a cancer diagnosis in my early twenties. This and other ensuing illnesses robbed me of my physical autonomy and youthful aspirations, but brought me closer to those who cared for me as well as to the spiritual realm. Since then, the body has become the central focus of both my personal and artistic practice. With regard to trance and altered states of consciousness, my intention has always been to work with communities that have been excluded or disenfranchised because of gender, or ability, or traits outside what society considers to be the norm. I see dance as a liberation from oppression, a way to silence inner demons and reprogram destructive behavioral patterns. For me, dance offers an alternative perspective to the one ingrained in us by oppressors and colonizers. Dance is a form of political resistance, restoring agency to those who’ve been denied it and enabling them to transcend their own oppression (even self-imposed oppression). Ritual, dance, meditation, light-play and games are a few of the ways I facilitate space for connection and communion among individuals by dismantling the ego. I regularly hold community dance workshops that guide participants into altered states of consciousness by means of their movement and the manipulation of colored lights (see Light Body).

My work has been exhibited at Le Centre Pompidou in Paris, FRAC-Méca Museum of Contemporary Art in Bordeaux, The Invisible Dog in New York, Palácio da Bolsa in Porto, Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, The Contemporary Art Center La Panacée in Montpellier, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Skopje and many other venues in France and abroad.