"CARMEN RIVERA: THEATRE OF LATINIDAD" DISSERTATION (original) (raw)

Staging Lives in Latin American Theater (Introduction)

Staging Lives in Latin American Theater, 2021

Staging Lives in Latin American Theater: Bodies, Objects, Archives examines twenty-first-century documentary theater in Latin America, focusing on important plays by the Argentine director Vivi Tellas, the Argentine playwright and director Lola Arias, the Mexican theater collective Teatro Línea de Sombra, and the Chilean playwright and director Guillermo Calderón. Paola S. Hernández demonstrates how material objects and archives—photographs, videos, and documents such as witness reports, legal briefs, and letters—come to life onstage. Hernández argues that present-day, live performances catalog these material archives, expanding and reinterpreting the objects’ meanings. These performances produce an affective relationship between actor and audience, visualizing truths long obscured by repressive political regimes and transforming theatrical spaces into sites of witness. This process also highlights the liminality between fact and fiction, questioning the veracity of the archive.

Filling the Empty Space: Women and Latin American Theatre

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature, 1996

In recent years, Latin American women have begun to appropriate and fill a space once empty of their presence. This essay looks at the work of four such women, (Diana Raznovich and Cristina Escofet of Argentina, Raquel Araujo of Mexico and the Peruvian Sara Joffre), to see how they give substance and voice to their particular concerns. In the process, this essay focusses on: 1) the notion of gender as performance; 2) the feminist deconstruction of narrative; 3) the female body in theatrical space; and 4) new, postmodern ways of doing feminist political theatre.

Staging Lives in Latin American Theater

2021

This book was made possible through the generosity and collaboration of numerous scholars, institutions, and friends, to whom I am indebted and deeply grateful. The University of Wisconsin-Madison provided the leave time and funds to concentrate on my research. The UW-Madison Institute for Research in the Humanities and its director Susan Friedman invited me to participate in a semester-long scholarly residency. The Vilas Associate Fund at UW-Madison funded the field research and two years of summer support necessary to complete this project as well as the Summer Humanities Research Fellow program (2018) directed by Steven Nadler, through which parts of the book were workshopped by theater scholars Jean Graham-Jones, Brenda Werth, Sarah Misemer, Ana Puga, and Mary Trotter. I am honored to have worked with all of you. Because I believe in collaborative work and feedback, I know that this book could not have been produced without engaging dialogue with colleagues and friends in the field and beyond. At the University of Wisconsin, my colleagues Mercedes Alcalá-Galán and Steven Hutchinson have participated in long conversations about theater and art over wonderful dinners that continued late into the evening. Many thanks to Rubén Medina, Luís Madureira, and Guillermina De Ferrari for being great colleagues with insightful comments; to Laurie Beth Clark and Michael Peterson for teaching me about generosity; and to Falina Enriquez and Jill Casid for always engaging with my work. I am grateful to all of you for providing me with constant support and intellectual conversations. A special mention goes to my friend and colleague Marcelo Pellegrini for always believing in my book and everything related to theater. I am also thankful to the many graduate students who have shared their thoughts and ideas in seminars and have traveled to Chicago with me to see plays, especially

Latina Theatre for Young Audiences: Mariachi Girl

2017

While Riverside is a central hub of art and culture in Southern California with a predominantly Latina/o population, there is a lack of theatre produced by Latina theatre artists for Latina/o audiences, especially youth. On February 18 th , 2016 at the Culver Center of the Arts in Downtown Riverside, the UCR Latina/o Play Project (LPP), student theatre ensemble, address this need for culturally responsive theatre for families in the community by producing Mariachi Girl, a bilingual musical by playwright Roxanne Schroeder-Arce. With funds and support from the Chancellor's Research Fellowship and the Gluck Fellows Program of the Arts, LPP was able to bring this beautiful story to life as a fully-staged production, with live mariachi band, folklorico dancer, talented actors and singers-all free and open to the public. Through narrative of my experience, plus rehearsal and performance photos, I will describe my artistic process and experience as director and producer. I will also explain how my directorial process evolved over the seven weeks of rehearsals with help from my cast, my faculty mentor, and my directorial mentor. I will discuss the audience reaction and response from anonymous surveys after the show. Finally, there is a discussion of the importance of culturally responsive theatre for people of all ages, creeds, races, and cultures. iii Acknowledgements Muchismas gracias to Dr. Tiffany Ana López, my faculty mentor, for being such an amazing inspiration to me and my family, and for all her work and help in getting me to this place in my life, that I could have never imagined. The amazing Latina/o Play