1st Edition

A History of Latinx Performing Arts in the U.S. Volume I

By Beatriz J. Rizk Copyright 2024

    A History of Latinx Performing Arts in the U.S. provides a comprehensive overview of the development of the Latinx performing arts in what is now the U.S. since the sixteenth century.

    This book combines theories and philosophical thought developed in a wide spectrum of disciplines—such as anthropology, sociology, gender studies, feminism, and linguistics, among others—and productions’ reviews, historical context, and political implications. Split into two volumes, these books offer interpretations and representations of a wide range of Latinxs’ lived experiences in the U.S. Volume I provides a chronological overview of the evolution of the Latinx community within the U.S., spanning from the 1500s to today, with an emphasis on the Chicano artistic renaissance initiated by Luis Valdez and the Teatro Campesino in the 1960s. Volume II continues, looking more in depth at the experiences of Latinx individuals on theatre and performance, including Miguel Piñero, Lin-Manuel Miranda, María Irene Fornés, Nilo Cruz, and John Leguizamo, as well as the important role of transnational migration in Latinx communities and identities across the U.S.

    A History of Latinx Performing Arts in the U.S. offers an accessible and comprehensive understanding of the field and is ideal for students, researchers, and instructors of theatre studies with an interest in the diverse and complex history of Latinx theatre and performance.

    Part I  From the Spanish Frontier to the U.S. Borderlands  1 The Spanish Mission Era: Traces of a Living Culture after Three Hundred Years of Colonial Rule  2 The Mexican Period and Beyond: The Creation Generation  3 First Migrant Generation and the Establishing of the Border in the Southwest 4 Mexican Americans: The Shaping of a Community  Part II  Re-Writing History: Mexican American/Chicana/o Dramaturgy  1 Chicano Renaissance: The Flourishing of a Movement  2 Chicana/o/Latinx Playwriting: The Gender Perspective  3 Playwrights as Historians: Building a Counter History  Part III  Building a Border Consciousness: Identity Politics and Social Change  1 The Border as a Discursive Space  2 Representing Immigration: The Process of Un-Othering the Border Crosser  3 The "Latinx Threat": Defeating the Culture of Fear and Silence  4 Octavio Solis: The Voice of Affect in the Borderlands

    Biography

    Beatriz J. Rizk, PhD, is the Educational Director of the International Hispanic Theatre Festival of Miami, U.S., and a member of Teatro Avante. She has published numerous articles on Latinx and Latin American theatre in specialized journals in the Americas and Europe. Her books include Imaginando un Continente: Utopía, democracia y neoliberalismo en el teatro latinoamericano, two volumes (2010).