RIO GRANDE VALLEY, TEXAS \u2013<\/strong>\u00a0It\u2019s hard not to notice the latest additions to the UTRGV theater department: They\u2019re 11 feet tall.<\/p>\n The towering figures are puppets called\u00a0mojigangas<\/em>, which originated in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. People place the puppets on their shoulders, making them much larger than life.<\/p>\n \u201cThey built these puppets to parade them around the streets, and they dance around,\u201d said Lucero Rodriguez, a UTRGV senior from Reynosa with a double major in theater and applied mathematics.<\/p>\n Rodriguez is president of the\u00a0UTRGV Latino Theatre Initiatives<\/a>, a student organization working to include more Latino culture into theater in the Rio Grande Valley. The university\u2019s\u00a0Transforming Our World Strategic Plan awarded funds<\/a>\u00a0to the organization for the puppets.<\/p>\n Building them involved a bit of a learning curve. Rodriguez had never actually seen the\u00a0mojigangas<\/em>\u00a0used in Mexico. The group watched videos on YouTube to learn how to make them.<\/p>\n \u201cThey were using bamboo wood, and they were using machetes,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Because of safety concerns, the students took a different approach.<\/p>\n \u201cWe tried to think of a more practical way to do it, but still have the concept and bring the culture in,\u201d Rodriguez said.<\/p>\n The early prototypes are scattered near the completed\u00a0mojigangas<\/em>\u00a0like fallen soldiers, reminders of the feverish work to complete the puppets before LTI\u2019s April 25 deadline, so the organization could feature them in a show at an elementary school.<\/p>\n Lucero Rodriguez, president of the UTRGV Latino Theatre Initiatives, stands on a chair to pose with the UTRGV mojigangas, enormous puppets the student organization made this spring. The group is including the 11-foot-tall puppets in a play they\u2019ll be performing in October in Brownsville and Edinburg. In the play, a girl\u2019s homemade dolls come to life. Photo: Maria Elena Hernandez\/UTRGV<\/p><\/div>\n Dr. Eric Wiley, a theatre professor in the UTRGV College of Fine Arts whose spring acting class helped construct the\u00a0mojigangas,\u00a0<\/em>said there were times when they debated whether to cancel the show.<\/p>\n \u201cBut we just stayed up late,\u201d he said. \u201cWe came in earlier and we just persevered. Some people who were in LTI before and have graduated, they came and helped us. My wife came in and helped us. Everyone was pitching in. The costume people stayed up late and we got it together.\u201d<\/p>\n The hard work was well worth it, when the group performed for students in Donna and Brownsville, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cOh, it was thrilling,\u201d Wiley said. \u201cIt was so much fun for the kids and for us to finally get these puppets out there.\u201d<\/p>\n Including the\u00a0mojigangas<\/em>\u00a0in a play is outside their traditional use.<\/p>\n \u201cNormally, you would find these giant puppets in street parades. And we hope to do that also,\u201d Wiley said. \u201cWhat\u2019s different about these puppets is that they are actually made for a play that I wrote for them.\u201d<\/p>\n Rodriguez said the\u00a0mojigangas<\/em>\u00a0definitely made an impression on the young audience.<\/p>\n \u201cThey were super excited. They were smiling and every time the puppets would come in, they were like, \u2018Look, look at that one,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s something magical for them.\u201d<\/p>\n Performances of the play, complete with\u00a0mojigangas,<\/em>\u00a0are planned in October at the UTRGV Performing Arts Center in Edinburg and at the TSC Performing Arts Center in Brownsville.<\/p>\n The puppets also are expected to make an appearance in a Day of the Dead event, and the theater group hopes to collaborate with the university\u2019s mariachi and folkl\u00f3rico groups in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Giant puppets wow children at performances by Maria Elena Hernandez RIO GRANDE VALLEY, TEXAS \u2013\u00a0It\u2019s hard not to notice the latest additions to the UTRGV theater department: They\u2019re 11 feet tall. The towering figures are puppets called\u00a0mojigangas, which originated in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. People place the puppets on their shoulders, making them much […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":8803,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-valley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8802"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8802\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8804,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8802\/revisions\/8804"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/UTRGVs-Mojigangas-with-Lucero-Rodriguez.jpg\")