1st Edition

Performances that Change the Americas

Edited By Stuart Alexander Day Copyright 2022
    248 Pages 27 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    248 Pages 27 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    This collection of essays explores activist performances, all connected to theater or performance training, that have changed the Americas—from Canada to the Southern Cone. Through the study of specific examples from numerous countries, the authors of this volume demonstrate a crucial, shared outlook: they affirm that ordinary people change the direction of history through performance. This project offers concrete, compelling cases that emulate the modus operandi of people like historian Howard Zinn. In the same spirit, the chapters treat marginal groups whose stories underscore the potentially unstoppable and transformative power of united, embodied voices. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of theatre, performance, art and politics.

    List of Figures

    Chapter 1: Introduction

    Case Studies in Activist Performance

    Stuart A. Day, the University of Kansas

    Chapter 2:

    Playing Creole: Circus Dramas, the Theater Marketplace, and Urban Society in Argentina and Uruguay

    William Acree, Washington University in St. Louis

    Chapter 3:

    BASTA: Reactivating Bodies and the Dramaturgy of Femicides in Argentina

    Paola Hernández, University of Wisconsin–Madison

    Chapter 4:

    Carnival in Hell: Kinetic Dissidence and the New Queer Carnivalesque in Contemporary Brazil

    Pablo Assumpção Barros Costa, Universidade Federal do Ceará, Brazil

    Chapter 5:

    Absent Bodies and Melted Weapons: Art and Social Change in Contemporary Colombia

    Gastón Alzate and Paola Marín, California State University, Los Angeles

    Chapter 6:

    Queering Abiayala: Personal and Political Cartographies of the Indigenous Americas

    Tiffany D. Creegan Miller, Colby College

    Chapter 7:

    Music, Poetry, and Créolité in the Songs of Carole Demesmin, Singer, Troubadour, and Activist

    Cécile Accilien, Kennesaw State University

    Chapter 8:

    An Island in Crisis: Theater Groups and Social Change in Puerto Rico in the New Millennium

    Priscilla Meléndez, Trinity College

    Chapter 9:

    Performing the Revolution: Castro’s Cuba

    Marta M. Caminero-Santangelo, University of Kansas

    Chapter 10

    The Queer/Muxe Performance of Disappearance:
    Lukas Avendaño’s Butterfly Utopia

    Antonio Prieto Stambaugh, Universidad Veracruzana, Mexico

    Chapter 11

    "Why Are the Canadian Authorities Afraid of This Play?"

    Eight Men Speak and Section 98 of the Criminal Code of Canada

    Alan Filewod

    Index

    Biography

    Stuart A. Day is Professor of Spanish at the University of Kansas. A graduate of Northern Arizona University, The University of Arizona, and Cornell University, Day’s recent books include Outside Theater: Alliances That Shape Mexico and Modern Mexican Culture