Latina Performance

Alicia Arrizon

Description

A Choice Outstanding Academic Book of 2000

"Latina Performance is a densely theorized treatment of rich materials." —MultiCultural Review

"Arrizón's important book revolves around the complex issues of identity formation and power relations for US women performers of Latin American descent." —Choice

Latina Performance examines the Latina subject whose work as dramatist, actress, theorist, and/or critic further defines the field of theater and performance in the United States. Alicia Arrizón looks at the cultural politics that flows from the intersection of gender, ethnicity, race, class, and sexuality.

Sujets

• Literary Criticism
• Latin American
• Theater
• Women
• América del Sur
• Theatre
• General officer
• Gender
• Woman
• South America
• Latin America
• Cinema
• Anthropology
• The Women
• General
• Caribbean
• History
• Performance
• Culture
• Media

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 22 septembre 1999
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9780253028150
• Langue: English

Extrait

Latina Performance
Unnatural Acts: Theorizing the Performative
S UE -E LLEN C ASE P HILIP B RETT S USAN L EIGH F OSTER
 
The partitioning of performance into obligatory appearances and strict disallowances is a complex social code assumed to be “natural” until recent notions of performativity unmasked its operations. Performance partitions, strictly enforced within traditional conceptions of the arts, foreground the gestures of the dancer, but ignore those of the orchestra player, assign significance to the elocution of the actor, but not to the of the audience. The critical notion of performativity both reveals these partitions as unnatural and opens the way for the consideration of all cultural intercourse as performance. It also exposes the compulsory nature of some orders of performance. The oppressive requirements of systems that organize gender and sexual practices mark who may wear the dress and who may perform the kiss. Further, the fashion of the dress and colorizing of the skin that dons it are disciplined by systems of class and “race.” These cultural performances are critical sites for study. The series Unnatural Acts encourages further interrogations of all varieties of performance both in the traditional sense of the term and from the broader perspective provided by performativity.

This book is a publication of
 
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© 1999 by Alicia Arrizón
 
A portion of chapter 2 appeared as “Soldaderas and the Staging of the Mexican Revolution,” in The Drama Review: The Journal of Performance Studies 42, no. 1 (Spring 1998), and it appears here in a new form with permission of MIT.
 
All rights reserved
 
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses’ Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
 
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48–1984.
 
Manufactured in the United States of America
 
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
 
Arrizón, Alicia.
Latina performance : traversing the stage /Alicia Arrizón.
p. cm. —(Unnatural acts)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0–253–33508–6 (cloth : alk. paper). -ISBN 0–253–21285–5 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Mexican American theater. 2. Hispanic American drama (Spanish). 3. Hispanic American women in literature. 4. Hispanic American women. 5. Hispanic American lesbians.   I. Title.   II. Series.
PN2270.M48A77     1999
792’.089’68073—dc21                                   99–11577
1    2    3    4    5    04    03    02    01    00    99
For Gina Marie Ong
“I painted my own reality” —F RIDA K AHLO
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction
ONE
In Quest of Latinidad: Identity, Disguise, and Politics
TWO
The Mexican American Stage: La Chata Noloesca and Josefina Niggli
THREE
Chicana Identity and Performance Art: Beyond Chicanismo
FOUR
Cross-Border Subjectivity and the Dramatic Text
FIVE
Self-Representation: Race, Ethnicity, and Queer Identity
Final Utter-Acts
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Illustrations
  1. Dolores del Rio
  2. Dorita Ceprano
  3. La Chata Noloesca
  4. La Chata Noloesca
  5. La Chata Noloesca
  6. La Chata Noloesca
  7. Josefina Niggli
  8. A Scene from Soldadera
  9. Two Defiant Soldaderas
10. A Scene from La Adelita
11. Posada’s Calavera Revolucionaria
12. Popular Calendar: La Adelita
13. A Scene from I DisMember the Alamo
14. A Scene from Simply María
15. Monica Palacios
16. Postcard: Carmelita Tropicana
Acknowledgments
Special gratitude is offered to the Chicano Studies Research Center and the Institute of the American Cultures at the University of California, Los Angeles, where I was a visiting scholar (1994–1995). At UC Riverside, I want to thank the Vice Chancellor’s office, The Center for Ideas and Society, and the Institute for Mexico … the United States (UC Mexus). The financial support of these organizations has contributed to the enhancement of my research.
Acknowledgments are extended to many people: those performance artists, dramatists, and intellectuals whose works have shaped and inspired my own work, and my friends and colleagues who guided me in the final preparation of the book. The inspiration and support of scholars such as Sue-Ellen Case and Diana Taylor have been instrumental to me. I dearly respect their contributions in the field and fully admire their intellect. Working with them (in the international feminist group of IFTR, the performing identities group, etc.) has been an enlightened experience. Sue-Ellen, one of the editors of the series, along with Susan Foster and Philip Brett, helped me achieve my analytic prowess. With her special personal touch, Susan Foster inspired me to find my own voice. I wish to express my sincere gratitude to Joan Catapano, who is the sponsoring editor at Indiana University Press.
I also wish to thank my friends and colleagues who in one way or another are involved in my intellectual journey: Lillian Manzor, David Román, Josie Saldaña, Jennifer Brody, Marta Savigliano, Margie Waller, Sharon Salinger, Susan Rose, and Inés Salazar. My connection with them is substantiated by different levels of sisterhood (and brotherhood). In this group I also want to include Vicki Ruiz, who made comments on the first draft of chapter 4; and Yvonne Yarbro-Bejarano, who provided copies of her own unpublished work which helped engage my ideas with hers. I really appreciate their friendship, generosity, and intellectual support. Special thanks to Kathy Mooney, who read my manuscript and offered suggestions for clarity.
My deepest gratitude to my father and mother, Francisco Arrizón and Ofelia Peña, for having instilled in me the belief that I could accomplish any goal I set for myself. I love you both very much. I also want to thank my sisters and brothers, nieces and nephews, for their love and patience. I hope to have more time in the future to visit more often. My appreciation to extended members of my family, Wil Villa and Olga Vásquez, for their unconditional love and support, which are always well received. Finally, Gina Marie Ong, who transformed my life with her love so that I can write. I dedicate this book to her.
 
 
 
 
El otro, la mudez que pide voz al que tiene la voz y reclama el oído del que escucha.
 
[The other, muteness that begs a voice from the one who speaks and demands the ear of the one who listens]
 
Introduction
These verses from one of the most prominent Mexican poets and dramatists of this century, Rosario Castellanos (1925–1974), embody the struggle of the suppressed subject who wishes for a voice, who longs to be heard. The quoted verses are from the poem “Poesía no eres tú” (Poetry Is Not You), a title she also used for her compiled volume of poetry, published in 1971. I consider it very appropriate to begin my book with these verses because it is in this poem that Castellanos counters the ultra-romantic vision of the nineteenth-century Spanish poet Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer. In Bécquer’s poem “¿Qué es poesía?” (What is poetry?), the poetic subject responds, “Poesía eres tú” (Poetry is you). Writing during Spain’s Romantic period, Bécquer depicted the female body in the conventional idiom of his day—as delicate and docile, materialized in beauty and harmony. She was the sex of poetry and the object-muse of that period’s romantic imagination. Bécquer’s verses have gradually come to epitomize Romantic poetry. This poem of his is still “performed” each year in poetry festivals and memorized by literature students in classes throughout the Hispanic world. I can clearly remember having to learn “¿Qué es poesía?” by heart as an assignment in the first Hispanic literature class I took as an undergraduate.
Castellanos’ creative response, which reverses Bécquer’s cliché, underscores the presence of a voice who speaks and a receptor who must listen. I find Castellanos’ subversive imagination especially intriguing because she proposes radical ways to reverse the order that portrayed the female body as a static creature of attraction, an object of desire. By subverting form and content, Castellanos pro