Guelaguetza celebrations in Oaxaca are returning in July and August of 2022, after two years of restriction. The government of Oaxaca announced that this year, the Guelaguetza will return in July, with the first festival on July 25th and the second on August 1st.
Guelaguetza is a large celebration in which cultural representatives from Oaxaca’s eight regions gather in the capital city to offer a variety of cultutal festivals such as food, music, folk art, and dances.
Our tour takes place from July 25 – 31, we chose the frame of the Guelaguetza celebrations, where artisans prepare the best of their handicrafts for the fiestas, where we will get firsthand textile selections, and where we will focus our tour on weavers from Oaxaca’s Sierra Norte and Sierra Mixe, as well as the Tlacolula Valley. Send us an email to register to: norma.schafer@icloud.com or sign up via our registration form.
Monday, July 25: Day 1 we’ll check into our B&B in Teotitlan Del Valle and get settled in for the next few days of adventure. You won’t have to worry about the craziness of Oaxaca City because we’ll be based in peaceful Teotitlan Del Valle, where we’ll stay in a comfortable B&B; this is the famous town of weavers.
Tuesday, July 26: Day 2 is our orientation day; we have planned a program to learn and explore the textile traditions of Teotitlan; we will discuss how the weaving tradition is passed down from generation to generation, we will visit weaving studios, learn about the use of natural dyes, the meanings of traditional designs, weaving techniques, and how the production of hand made textiles sustains the entire town.
Wednesday, July 27: Day 3, we will take a two and a half hour ride into the Sierra Norte to visit San Pedro Cajonos and their new silk sanctuary, which opened in 2020, where the leaders of the weaver’s guild in this town will walk us through this incredible facility and discuss silk production. We will learn about the history of pre-Columbian silks, the introduction of Asian silk after the Spanish conquest, and the domestication of the species to a wild species also harvested in this town. We will discuss the silk process, the grow of the silk worms, spin, dye, and weave on the back strap loom. And a special sale of a variety of silk products such as scarfs, blouses, dresses and jewelry. A special lunch menu will be prepared for us in their terrace overlooking the magnificent Sierra Norte mountains, which will include handcrafted tortillas with silk weavers.
Thursday, July 28: Day 4 we will travel to the valley of Tlacolula, where we will learn about the red clay and visit a women’s cooperative, we will discuss the process and tradition of this hand craft in this Zapotec town of San Marcos Tlapazola. Our next stop will be Mitla, where we will visit a weaver who specializes in weaving wool and cotton fabric on treadle looms using natural dyes. Before returning to our B&B, we will stop at a palenque to learn about mezcal and have a special taste of the wild species of agave.
Friday, July 29: Day 5 we’ll get an early start and drive into the mountains of the pueblo Mixe of Santa Maria Tlahuitoltepec in Oaxaca’s Sierra Norte, a town rich in musical, textile, and pottery traditions. We will be greeted by a group of weavers and embroiderers who specialize in the use of treadle looms and the use of alder wood, a local natural dye that produces a rich orange on cotton fibers. We will learn about the meanings of their embroidered designs, which were involved in a case of cultural appropriation back in 2015 by a French brand design.
Our final stop in Tlahuitoltepec will be to see master potter Victor Vasquez, who specializes in large format clay musicians that represent his community’s musical tradition. In his studio, we will learn about his work and see their open fire kilns.
Saturday, July 30th: Day 6 is our final day, and we have planned a special goodbye event sale where weavers from the regions Coast, Isthmus, and Mixtec will gather to offer us their best selection of textiles before the big Guelaguetza day on August 1st. We will see textiles woven on back strap looms from the pueblos of San Mateo Del Mar, San Juan Colorado, triqui, and San Juan Cotzocon. We will open the expo venta to the public after we have visited it first. Our Teotitlan del Valle expoventa will be held in the new Teñido a Mano weaving and dye studio in the village.
Oaxaca is the Mexican state with the greatest diversity of weaving techniques; this tour complements the tour of the coast we offer during the winter season and provides a better understanding of textile traditions in this area of Oaxaca.
To lear more about us, questions, policies, etc. Please visit: oaxacaculture.com
Eric Chavez Santiago and Norma Schafer
Your Oaxaca Cultural Navigator is Eric Chavez Santiago. Norma Schafer will also accompany this tour. Eric is a weaver and natural dye expert, and has personal relationships with each artisan we visit. He is a Oaxaca native, born and raised in Teotitlan del Valle, and speaks Zapotec, Spanish and English. Eric was the founding director of education at the Museo Textil de Oaxaca from 2008 to 2016. In 2017, Alfredo Harp Helu and Isabel Granen Porrua asked him to open, manage and promote indigenous craft through their folk art gallery Andares del Arte Popular. He is now a partner with Norma in Oaxaca Cultural Navigator and operates Taller Teñido a Mano, a family enterprise that creates naturally dyed woven goods for international sales and distribution. Eric is a graduate of Anahuac University and has made textile presentations throughout the world.