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).

Unit One: Introduction
[Unit 1]

Latin America has rich and important theatre and performance traditions dating back long before the conquest in the 16th century. Spectacular performances organized the public sphere in the times of the Aztecs, Mayas, and Incas. Performances that included rituals, recitations, dialogues, dance, music, as well as forms that we might now call 'theatre,' were an integral part of everyday life. They were so important, in fact, that scholars have long spoken of these pre-conquest societies as 'perpetual theatre.'

1/27 Class 1:

• Introduction: Pre-conquest performance

Unit Two: Performing Colonialism: 16th, 17th and 18th Century
[Unit 2]

With the conquest, theatre became an instrument of colonization and evangelization. Impressed by the highly developed visual culture of the Americas, and finding the linguistic obstacles almost insurmountable, missionaries claimed that the native inhabitants "only learned through their eyes." As a means of accelerating the conversion process, they introduced evangelical theatre, drawing from their knowledge of medieval Spanish theatre. New versions of 12th century European mystery plays, Corpus Christi celebrations, and Moor vs. Christians plays began to be performed in the Americas, but now staged in indigenous languages, with indigenous actors, traditions, props, and adapted to reflect the contemporary concerns. While the European traditions were clearly visible in these productions, they underwent change as the performances were adapted to new circumstances. While theatre was introduced into the Americas as a vehicle of colonization, scholars have long been fascinated by the ways in which indigenous populations used these imported forms as a means for transmitting their own world view and strategies of resistance.

2/3 Class 2:

• "Rabinal Achi, Commentary" (in English, Spanish version is a xerox)
  

2/10 Class 3: Troubled Encounters

• Tragedia del fin de Atau Wallpa (Spanish speakers)
• Gueguence (Eng/Esp, xerox)
  
  

2/17 Class 4: Video Session (Diana will not be there)

• Apu Inca (Peru) English/Spanish version, 14:30 min.
  
  

  ASSIGNMENT! Write 4 pg. paper on indigenous theatre/performance. Post on class webboard by 5pm Sat., Feb. 22. Please read everyone's paper before class 5, 10/7.

2/24 Class 5: Evangelical Theatre

Discuss Videos and Papers

• Conquest of Jerusalem
• Final Judgement
• Motolinía, ch. XV, History of the Indians of New Spain
• Corpus Christi, archive of materials compiled by Alyshia Galvez
• Edicts against Performance, "Las Artes Escenicas en las Festivaidades Religosas" (1539-1818)
  Part I (English Translation)
  Part II (English Translation)
  

3/3 Class 6: Double Coded Performance

• Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, Loa of the Divine Narcissus (Spanish)
  Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, Loa of the Divine Narcissus (English)
  

Unit Three: Staging the Nation: 19th Century
[Unit 3]

This section presents theatre and performance that address the shifting notions of ethnic, racial, gender, and national identity as national borders and identities consolidate in the Americas. What, now, does it mean to be 'native?' Who is 'American'? Who is 'Mexican'? Or 'Indian'? Some 'high-brow' 19th plays attempt to re-invent the past in order to fortify a post-independence sense of national identity. Popular performances such as pastorelas, carpa, circo criollo, day of the dead celebrations, and revista theatre participate in the transmission of social memory and ethnic identity, and constitute the origins of contemporary Latin American performance art. These traditions of popular performance also developed into many of the Chicano/a performance traditions practices today.

3/10 Class 7:

• "Los Pastores", Part One & Part Two
• "Los Comanches"
• "Having the Last Word: Recording the Cost of Conquest in Los Comanches" by Sandra Dahlberg
  

3/24 Class 8: 19th Century continued

Discuss Papers

• Juan Moreria
• Los Tejanos
  
  

Unit Four: 20th Century
[Unit 4]

While many of the short forms of popular performance continue well into the 20th century-with the grotesco criollo, the revista, the carpa, and other forms of entertainment doubling as social critique, there was also a strong independent theatre movement that developed to counter the many commercial productions arriving from Europe and the U.S. In 1960s there was a 'boom' of theatrical production that exploded in the wake of the Cuban Revolution. The bulk of the materials included here will draw from this period during which playwrights and collective theatre groups used performance as a way of contesting centuries of oppression. Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed is only the most famous of these many efforts. When the military dictatorships started coming to power in the 1960s and 1970s, playwright began thinking of their work as a form of political intervention. Teatro abierto (Argentina, 1981), for example, remains the most important example of theatre as a form of social activism. 150 banned artists got together to stage a cycle of 21 short plays. The military burned down the theatre, and yet the cycle continued. Playwrights included in this volume (Gambaro, Pavlovsky, and Raznovich) participated in that event. After the dictatorships slowly fell from power, playwrights dealt with the many repercussion of living with the legacy of criminal politics, with and among torturers. Another group of playwrights and performers turned to humor as a way of confronting the many other repressive systems strengthen by the dictatorships-the sexism, homophobia, and racism of everyday life. Performance artists such a Denise Stoklos, Jesusa Rodríguez, Astrid Hadad and others challenge the brutality and corruption of their regimes by drawing on 'lighter' yet equally vital traditions such as revista, circo, and cabaret.

3/31 Class 9: Theatre and Revolution

• Enrique Buenaventura, "Theatre and Society" and "Documents from Hell"
  
• Augusto Boal, Theatre of the Oppressed (Bookstore)
• Jose Triana, "Night of the Assassins"
• Diana Taylor, Theatre of Crisis Ch. 2 & 5 (Bookstore)

4/7 Class 10: Theatre and Cultural Memory

• Emilio Carballido, Yo tambien hablo de la rosa/ I too Speak of the Rose
• Yuyachkani, cuaderno
• Taylor, Theatre of Crisis, Ch. 4, "Staging Social Memory: Yuyachkani"
• View: Contraelviento
• Antigona
  

11/18 Class 11: Theatre and Terror

• Griselda Gambaro, Informacion para extranjeros/Information for Foreigners (Bookstore)
• Eduardo Pavlovsky, "Potestad/Impunity"
• Diana Raznovitch, "El desconcierto/Disconcerted", in Actos Desafiantes (Bookstore)
• View: Teatro Abierto website
  www.teatrodelpueblo.org.ar/teatro_abierto/index.htm
  www.dramateatro.arts.ve/ensoyos/teatro_abierto_argentino.html
  
  

4/21 Class 12: Feminist Performance

• Diana Raznovich, Manifesto Humor 2000
  Casa Matriz/MaTRIX, Inc.
• Jesusa Rodriguez, Sor Juana en Almoloya/Sor Juana in Prison
• Denise Stoklos, CASA
• View: Astrid Hadad video
  
  

4/28 Class 13: Discussion

5/5 Class 14: Final Discussion

Class Expectations:

• Attendance is mandatory. More than two absences will result in a lower grade. See me in advance if you know you will be away. Please don't be late-it's very disruptive. Two late arrivals will count as one absence.
• Students must participate in class actively and be prepared-up to date with readings and assignments.
• Students from Spanish and Portuguese are required to read the texts in Spanish. All others may read the works in Spanish or English. Any works not available online will be available through the NYU bookstore and on reserve at Bobst Library. A packet of the readings in Spanish are available for purchase at Advanced Copies (on LaGuardia-behind the new Kimmel Center, across from CitiBank).