Grupo Cultural Yuyachkani
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Political Performance in
Latin America
Course #H42.2407.001
Spring 2000
Department of Performance Studies
New York University
Taught by Diana Taylor
Office hours: Thursdays 2-5,
by appointment (call 998-1620)
Meeting time: Wednesdays, 12:30-3:15PM
Location: 721 Broadway, Room 636
Course Description
This course examines the use of performance - by the State, by
oppositional groups, and by theatre and performance practitioners - to
solidify or challenge structures of power. The course looks at specific
examples of how theatre and public spectacles have been used since the
1960s to control or contest the political stage. Starting with the
climactic moment of the Cuban revolution, we examine how Latin American
playwrights (Enrique Buenaventura, Emilio Carballido, José Triana,
Augusto Boal) and collective theatre groups (Yuyachkani, T.E.C.) struggled
to transform theatre from an instrument of colonial oppression into an
oppositional, at times revolutionary, "theatre of the oppressed." We then
look at the military dictatorships of the 1970s-80s, during which Latin
American playwrights, performers, and political actors responded to
political violence (Teatro Abierto, Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, Griselda
Gambaro, Eduardo Pavlovsky). In the 1980s and 90s the convergence of
performance and politics takes many forms - from issues of gender,
sexuality and race, to neo-colonialism and globalism - as visible in the
practices of playwrights and solo performance artists (Diana Raznovich,
Sabina Berman, Jesusa Rodriguez, Denise Stoklos, Astrid Hadad, Petrona de
la Cruz Cruz).
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