Negotiating Performance

Gender, Sexuality, and Theatricality in Latin/o America

Diana Taylor, Juan Villegas, Diana Taylor, Juan Villegas

• Publisher: Duke University Press Books
• Year: 1994
• Print ISBN: 9780822315155, 9780822315049
• eBook ISBN: 9780822399278
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism in Drama

In Negotiating Performance, major scholars and practitioners of the theatrical arts consider the diversity of Latin American and U. S. Latino performance: indigenous theater, performance art, living installations, carnival, public demonstrations, and gender acts such as transvestism. By redefining performance to include such events as Mayan and AIDS theater, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, and Argentinean drag culture, this energetic volume discusses the dynamics of Latino/a identity politics and the sometimes discordant intersection of gender, sexuality, and nationalisms.
The Latin/o America examined here stretches from Patagonia to New York City, bridging the political and geographical divides between U.S. Latinos and Latin Americans. Moving from Nuyorican casitas in the South Bronx, to subversive street performances in Buenos Aires, to border art from San Diego/Tijuana, this volume negotiates the borders that bring Americans together and keep them apart, while at the same time debating the use of the contested term "Latino/a." In the emerging dialogue, contributors reenvision an inclusive "América," a Latin/o America that does not pit nationality against ethnicity—in other words, a shared space, and a home to all Latin/o Americans.
Negotiating Performance opens up the field of Latin/o American theater and performance criticism by looking at performance work by Mayans, women, gays, lesbians, and other marginalized groups. In so doing, this volume will interest a wide audience of students and scholars in feminist and gender studies, theater and performance studies, and Latin American and Latino cultural studies.

Contributors. Judith Bettelheim, Sue-Ellen Case, Juan Flores, Jean Franco, Donald H. Frischmann, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Jorge Huerta, Tiffany Ana López, Jacqueline Lazú, María Teresa Marrero, Cherríe Moraga, Kirsten F. Nigro, Patrick O'Connor, Jorge Salessi, Alberto Sandoval, Cynthia Steele, Diana Taylor, Juan Villegas, Marguerite Waller

Table of contents

• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Diana Taylor / Opening Remarks
• Guillermo Gómez-Peña / The Multicultural Paradigm: An Open Letter to the National Arts Community
• Cherríe Moraga / Art in América con Acento
• Jorge Huerta / Looking for the Magic: Chicanos in the Mainstream
• Alberto Sandoval / Staging AIDS: What's Latinos Got To Do With It?
• Marguerite Waller / Border Boda or Divorce Fronterizo?
• Sue-Ellen Case / Seduced and Abandoned: Chicanas and Lesbians in Representation
• María Teresa Marrero / Public Art, Performance Art, and the Politics of Site
• Juan Flores / "Salvación Casita": Puerto Rican Performance and Vernacular Architecture in the South Bronx
• Kirsten F. Nigro / Inventions and Transgressions: A Fractured Narrative on Feminist Theatre in Mexico
• Jean Franco / A Touch of Evil: Jesusa Rodríguez's Subversive Church
• Judith Bettelheim / Ethnicity, Gender, and Power: Carnaval in Santiago de Cuba
• Donald H. Frischmann / New Mayan Theatre in Chiapas: Anthropology, Literacy, and Social Drama
• Cynthia Steele / "A Woman Fell into the River": Negotiating Female Subjects in Contemporary Mayan Theatre
• Jorge Salessi and Patrick O'Connor / For Carnival, Clinic, and Camera: Argentina's Turn-of-the-Century Drag Culture Performs "Woman"
• Diana Taylor / Performing Gender: Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo
• Juan Villegas / Closing Remarks
• Tiffany Ana López and Jacqueline Lazú / Bibliography
• Contributors
• Index