Book DescriptionRevolutionary feminism, queer, and trans activist movements are traversing Latin America and the Caribbean. Bodies on the Front Lines situates recent performances and protests within legacies of homegrown gender and sexual rights activism from the South. Performances—enacted in public spaces and intimate venues, across national borders, and through circulating hashtags and digital media—play crucial roles in the elaboration, auto-theorization, translation, and reception of feminist, queer, and trans activism. Movements such as Argentina's NiUnaMenos (Not One Less) have brought masses of protesters and “artivists” on the streets of major cities in Latin America and beyond to denounce gender violence and demand gender, sexual, and reproductive rights.
The volume’s contributors draw from rich legacies of theater, performance, and activism in the region, as well as decolonial and intersectional theorizing, to demonstrate the ways that performance practices enable activists to sustain their movements. The chapters engage diverse perspectives from Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, transnational Central America, Peru, Puerto Rico, and Mexico. Rather than taking an approach that simplifies complexities among states, Bodies on the Front Lines takes seriously the geopolitical stakes of examining Latin America and the Caribbean as a heterogeneous site of nations and networks. In chapters covering this wide geographical area, leading scholars in the fields of theater and performance studies showcase the aesthetic, social, and political work of performance in generating and fortifying gender and sexual activism in the Americas. University of Michigan Press 2024 Purchase here |
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In Part III: Dissident Bodies, Rebellious Objects
Grotesque Dramaturgy and Gender Critique in the Post-Dictatorship Southern Cone Theater in Latin America has historically generated performance spaces, during and after dictatorship, where artists can address issues of political repression and social injustice. This chapter examines works by two contemporary, Southern Cone female playwrights: Fauna by Romina Paula (2013, Argentina), and The Yellow Sun of Your Long Locks by Carla Zúñiga (El Amarillo Sol de Tus Cabellos Largos, 2018, Chile), and how these playwrights apply grotesque dramaturgy in their theatrical works to critique gender. While these playwrights’ neighboring countries have distinct histories, the two nations share the commonalities of surviving brutal dictatorships: Argentina (1976-1983), and Chile (1973-1990). In Fauna, Paula explores relationships between a woman, her brother, an actor and a director as they rehearse a screenplay about her deceased mother, who cross dressed as a male poet in part to defy gender discrimination. In The Yellow Sun of Your Long Locks (El Amarillo Sol de Tus Cabellos Largos), Zúñiga considers a trans mother who mourns losing custody of her child and fights to regain her son with the help of her community. Ultimately, these playwrights employ grotesque dramaturgy to offer important contributions that critique normative gender in the post-dictatorship, democratic Southern Cone. |
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Brenda Werth is Associate Professor of Latin American and Spanish Studies at American University.
Katherine Zien is Associate Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies at McGill University. |