December 14, 2022
Inspired by the illustrations in Duncan Tonatiuh’s Danza and Suzy González’s work with corn husk figures, we created an activity where students could think about dress and costume as an element in performance. We provided students with a template that had the outline of a figure in the style of of a Mesoamerican Codex. We then demonstrated how corn husks could be colored using markers, cut using scissors, and glue onto their figure. We also provided a wide variety of skin tone markers so that students weren’t limited in their representation of human pigmentation. Families and students worked together to color and create clothing for the figures. In the resulting artifacts we see student’s were able to present a creative variety of clothing designs for their corn husk dancers.
