Mexico City Reverses Venue Renaming Amid Cultural Protests

Mexico City's Secretariat of Culture has backed down from its controversial plan to rename the Casa del Poeta Ramón López Velarde, succumbing to pressure from the cultural community. The venue will retain its name, essence, and history intact, according to an official statement.

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There was misinformation because the only thing they emphasized is that the poet's house will become a cabaret, and that is absolutely false. The proposal is to revive the Café-Bar Las Hormigas, which was a Café Concert. Café Concert is the name given to that type of performance space at the time. Now, that scenic discipline is called cabaret.

However, the decision to initially strip the Casa del Poeta of its name and original poetic focus sparked widespread condemnation. Cultural figures labeled the move an "outrage," an arbitrary decision, and an authoritarian act of censorship. They accused the Secretariat, led by Ana Francis Mor, of misleading statements and persisting with plans to transform the Café-bar Las Hormigas into what they termed the city's first public cabaret.

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We are thinking of it as a performance space centered around poetry. How can we forget the show Liliana Felipe did with poetry by Pessoa, cabaret-style? How can we forget, in short, so many shows that have been done for the night, for the suitable space of Café Bar Las Hormigas, precisely around poetry... That's what we're talking about.

Mor, in a previous interview, insisted that the intention was not to turn the space into a cabaret but to revive its past as a "Café Concert," a term used for performance spaces that often featured poetry and cabaret-style acts. She argued that the programming would remain centered around poetry, citing historical performances that blended poetry with cabaret elements. Mor expressed surprise at the strong negative reaction to the word "cabaret," suggesting a lingering prejudice. She also questioned the use of a masculine generic name like "Casa del Poeta" in the 21st century, though she conceded that retaining the name was a minor issue if it was important to the community.

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After 30 years, I thought that prejudice no longer existed, but it still does. We are talking about the fact that Café-bar Las Hormigas, which many people remember for activities that we would now call poetry slams or other forms... we believe it is worth recovering.