Latin American Material at Cook

Sabotage is the deliberate disruption of a dominant system, be it political, military or economic. Yet in recent decades, sabotage has also become an artistic strategy most notably in Latin America. In Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Chile and Argentina, artists are producing radical, unruly or even iconoclastic work that resists state violence, social conformity and the commodification of art. Sabotage Art reveals how contemporary Latin American artists have resorted to sabotage strategies as a means to bridge the gap between aesthetics and politics. The global status of and market for Latin American art is growing rapidly. This book is essential reading for those who want to understand this new, dissident work, as well as its mystification, co-option and commercialisation within current academic historiographies and art-world curatorial initiatives."

Shows how the experience of violence in Argentina shed light on a new sense of "being together" that goes beyond bloodline ties. Co-winner of the 2013 inaugural Publication Prize awarded by the Association of Hispanists of Great Britain and Ireland The aftermath of Argentina's last dictatorship (1976-1983) has traditionally been associated with narratives of suffering, which recall the loss of the 30,000 civilians infamously known as the "disappeared". When democracy was recovered, the unspoken rule was that only those related by blood to the missing were entitledto ask for justice. This book both queries and queers this bloodline normativity. Drawing on queer theory and performance studies, it develops an alternative framework for understanding the affective transmission of trauma beyondtraditional family settings. To do so, it introduces an archive of non-normative acts of mourning that runs across different generations. Through the analysis of a broad spectrum of performances - including interviews, memoirs, cooking sessions, films, jokes, theatrical productions and literature - the book shows how the experience of loss has not only produced a well-known imaginary of suffering but also new forms of collective pleasure. Cecilia Sosa received a PhD in Drama from Queen Mary, University of London. She is currently a post-doctoral research fellow at School of Arts & Digital Industries, University of East London.

Using interdisciplinary performance studies and cultural studies frameworks, Laura G. Gutiérrez examines the cultural representation of queer sexuality in the contemporary cultural production of Mexican female and Chicana performance and visual artists. In particular, she locates the analytical lenses of feminist theory and queer theory in a central position to interrogate Mexican female dissident sexualities in transnational public culture. This is the first book-length study to wed performance studies and queer theory in examining the performative/performance work of important contemporary Mexicana and Chicana cultural workers. It proposes that the creations of several important artists--Chicana visual artist Alma López; the Mexican political cabareteras Astrid Hadad, Jesusa Rodríguez, Liliana Felipe, and Regina Orozco; the Chicana performance artist Nao Bustamante; and the Mexican video artist Ximena Cuevas--unsettle heterosexual national culture. In doing so, they are not only challenging heterosexist and nationalist discourses head-on, but are also participating in the construction of a queer world-making project. Treating the notion of dis-comfort as a productive category in these projects advances feminist and queer theories by offering an insightful critical movement suggesting that queer worlds are simultaneously spaces of desire, fear, and hope. Gutiérrez demonstrates how arenas formerly closed to female performers are now providing both an artistic outlet and a powerful political tool that crosses not only geographic borders but social, sexual, political, and class boundaries as well, and deconstructs the relationships among media, hierarchies of power, and the cultures of privilege.

An interdisciplinary collection exploring how creative practices broadly conceived to encompass urban design, museums, graffiti, film, music, literature, architecture, and performance art, continually reconstruct the urban scene in Latin America.

Beyond the Supersquare: Art and Architecture in Latin America after Modernism, which developed from a symposium presented by the Bronx Museum of the Arts in 2011, showcases original essays by distinguished Latin American architects, historians, and curators whose research examines architecture and urban designpractices in the region during a significant period of the twentieth century.

FRESCOS presents the work of 50 Puerto Rican artists under 35 years of age, selected by 10 internationally-recognized curators. These artists are members of a cosmopolitan generation who studied or work all around the world-in Europe and Asia as well as the Americas. Eight essays provide a context for their production. FRESCOS is a provocative book, the first to document the work of this generation as a whole, aiming to spark the curiosity of anyone, whether specialist or not, interested in Puerto Rican art and contemporary art in general. Artists included: Rebecca Adorno, Rogelio Baez, Javier Bosques, Osvaldo Budet, Melissa Calderon, Efren Candelaria, Myritza Castillo, Jorge 'Rito' Cordero, Corografico, Bobby Cruz, Jorge Diaz, Esteban Gabriel, Alia Farid Abdal, Monica Felix, Radames 'Juni' Figueroa, Frances Gallardo, Ignacio Gonzalez Lang, Michelle Gratacos, Pablo Guardiola, Karlo Andrei Ibarra, Edgardo Larregui, Michael Linares, among others...

An in-depth look at the transformative influence of Mexican artists on their U.S. counterparts during a period of social change The first half of the 20th century saw prolific cultural exchange between the United States and Mexico, as artists and intellectuals traversed the countries' shared border in both directions. For U.S. artists, Mexico's monumental public murals portraying social and political subject matter offered an alternative aesthetic at a time when artists were seeking to connect with a public deeply affected by the Great Depression. The Mexican influence grew as the artists José Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera, and David Alfaro Siqueiros traveled to the United States to exhibit, sell their work, and make large-scale murals, working side-by-side with local artists, who often served as their assistants, and teaching them the fresco technique. Vida Americana examines the impact of their work on more than 70 artists, including Marion Greenwood, Philip Guston, Isamu Noguchi, Jackson Pollock, and Charles White. It provides a new understanding of art history, one that acknowledges the wide-ranging and profound influence the Mexican muralists had on the style, subject matter, and ideology of art in the United States between 1925 and 1945. Published in association with the Whitney Museum of American Art Exhibition Schedule: Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (February 17-May 17, 2020) McNay Art Museum, San Antonio (June 25-October 4, 2020)

Explores the scope that there is for Indigenous curatorial agency in the relationship of Indigenous contemporary art with the 'art world'. This monograph focuses on the current boom in Indigenous contemporary art in Brazil, exploring in particular the way that this work interfaces with the art world through exhibitions, and the scope that there is for Indigenous curatorial agency in this relationship. After a brief introduction to Indigenous art, it gives an overview of the evolving relationship between Indigenous art and the art world, exploring in particular the nature of decolonial and/or Indigenous curatorial practice both in Brazil and elsewhere in the world. It then hones in on a recent exhibition: 'Arte Eletrônica Indígena' [Indigenous Electronic Art], held at the Museum of Modern Art of Bahia in Salvador in August 2018. Based on participant observation and interviews, it provides an ethnographic reading of the opening weekend of the exhibition, looking at the alternative modalities of Indigenous curatorial agency that were exercised by the Indigenous people present. The conclusion explores the legacy of the 'Arte Eletrônica Indígena' exhibition, particularly for the Indigenous communities involved, and looks to the evidence provided by the exhibition for lessons to be learned for future exhibitions.

Politics and music are intertwined in this study of different musical forms in Latin America from the twentieth century to the present as scholars from diverse disciplines analyze various musical genres contextualized by moments of political importance in Latin America. Interviews of prominent and up-and-coming musicians from Latin America discuss how the personal is actually political.

Music has been critical to national identity in Latin America, especially since the worldwide emphasis on nations and cultural identity that followed World War I. Unlike European countries with unified ethnic populations, Latin American nations claimed blended ethnicities--indigenous, Caucasian, African, and Asian--and the process of national stereotyping that began in the 1920s drew on themes of indigenous and African cultures. Composers and performers drew on the folklore and heritage of ethnic and immigrant groups in different nations to produce what became the music representative of different countries. Mexico became the nation of mariachi bands, Argentina the land of the tango, Brazil the country of Samba, and Cuba the island of Afro-Cuban rhythms, including the rhumba. The essays collected here offer a useful introduction to the twin themes of music and national identity and melodies and ethnic identification. The contributors examine a variety of countries where powerful historical movements were shaped intentionally by music.

The most up-to-date and comprehensive Latin American music survey available. Covering one of the most musically diverse regions in the world, Musics of Latin America emphasizes music as a means of understanding culture and society: each author balances an analysis of musical genres with discussion of the historical and cultural trends that have shaped them. Chapters cover traditional, popular, and classical repertoire, and in-text listening guides ensure that students walk away with a solid understanding of the music.

'Music Scenes and Migrations' brings together new work from Brazilian and European scholars around the themes of musical place and transnationalism across the Atlantic triangle connecting Brazil, Africa and Europe. Moving beyond now-contested models for conceptualizing international musical relations and hierarchies of powers and influence, such as global/local or centre/periphery, the volume draws attention instead to the role of the city, in particular, in producing, signifying and mediating music-making in the colonial and post-colonial Portuguese-speaking world. In considering the roles played by cities as hubs of cultural intersection, socialization, exchange and transformation; as sites of political intervention and contestation; and as homes to large concentrations of consumers, technologies and media, Rio de Janeiro necessarily figures prominently, given its historical importance as an international port at the centre of the Lusophone Atlantic world. The volume also gives attention to other urban centres, within Brazil and abroad, towards which musicians and musical traditions have migrated and converged - such as São Paulo, Lisbon and Madrid - where they have reinvented themselves; where notions of Brazilian and Lusophone identity have been reconfigured; and where independent, peripheral and underground scenes have contested the hegemony of the musical 'mainstream'.

Made in Latin America serves as a comprehensive introduction to the history, sociology, and musicology of contemporary Latin American popular music. Each essay, written by a leading scholar of Latin American music, covers the major figures, styles, and social contexts of popular music in Latin America and provides adequate context so readers understand why the figure or genre under discussion is of lasting significance. The book first presents a general description of the history and background of popular music, followed by essays organized into thematic sections: Theoretical Issues; Transnational Scenes; Local and National Scenes; Class, Identity, and Politics; and Gendered Scenes.

Feeling the Gaze: Image and Affect in Contemporary Argentine and Chilean Performance is the first book-length study to explore the connection between visuality and affect in Latin American theater performances. Taking Argentine and Chilean performances as models, Bulman shows how twenty-first century live performances manipulate images on stage to build an affective bond and lasting impression on spectators that sharpens the plays' socio-historical and political messaging. Through close readings of eight Southern Cone performances originally staged between 2014 and 2019 - many of which have also been performed internationally - Feeling the Gaze showcases the originality and innovation in Argentine and Chilean theater and contributes to existing scholarship on post-dramatic theater, performance studies, visual studies, cultural studies, affect studies, and world theater. By closely examining props, bodies, costumes, lighting, digital images and embedded screens through theoretical lenses, the book illustrates ways in which the artists' manipulation of visual elements on stage captivates spectators emotionally and intellectually.

From the colonial period to independence and into the twenty-first century, Latin American culture has been mapped as a subordinate "other" to Europe and the United States. This collection reconsiders geographical space and power and the ways in which theatrical and performance histories have been constructed throughout the Americas. Essays bridge political, racial, gender, class, and national divides that have traditionally restricted and distorted our understanding of Latin American theatre and performance. Contributors--scholars and artists from throughout the Americas, including well-known playwrights, directors, and performers--imagine how to reposition the Latina/o Americas in ways that offer agency to its multiple peoples, cultures, and histories. In addition, they explore the ways artists can create new maps and methods for their creative visions.   Building on hemispheric and transnational models, this book demonstrates the capacity of theatre studies to challenge the up-down/North-South approach that dominates scholarship in the United States and presents a strong case for a repositioning of the Latina/o Americas in theatrical histories and practices.  

Author Noe Montez considers how theatre, as a site of activism, produces memory narratives that change public reception to a government's transitional justice policies. Drawing on contemporary research in memory studies and transitional justice, Montez examines the Argentine theatre's responses to the country's transitional justice policies--truth and reconciliation hearings, trials, amnesties and pardons, and memorial events and spaces--that have taken place in the last decade of the twentieth century and the first two decades of the twenty-first century.   Montez explores how the sociohistorical phenomenon of the Teatroxlaidentidad--an annual showcase staged with the support of Argentina's Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo--acted as a vehicle for drawing attention to the hundreds of children kidnapped from their families during the dictatorship and looks at why the memory narratives regarding the Malvinas Islands (also known as the Falklands) range from ideological appropriations of the islands, to absurdist commentaries about the failed war that signaled the dictatorship's end, to the islands' heavily contested status today.   Memory, Transitional Justice, and Theatre in Postdictatorship Argentina explores the vibrant role of theatrical engagement in postdictatorship Argentina, analyzes plays by artists long neglected in English-language articles and books, and explores the practicalities of staging performances in Latin America.  

This volume asks, how did theatrical practice shape the multiplying forms of conversion that emerged in early modern Europe? Each chapter focuses on a specific city or selection of cities, beginning with Venice, then moving to London, Mexico City, Tlaxcalla, Seville, Madrid, Amsterdam, Zr̈ich, Berne, and Lucerne (among others). Collectively, these studies establish a picture of early modernity as an age teeming with both excitement and anxiety over conversional activity. In addition to considering the commercial theater that produced professional dramatists such as Lope de Vega and Thomas Middleton, the volume surveys a wide variety of kinds of theatre that brought theatricality into formative relationship with conversional practice.

A certain idea of the avant-garde posits the possibility of a total rupture with the past. The Unfinished Art of Theater pulls back on this futuristic impulse by showing how theater became a key site for artists on the semiperiphery of capitalism to reconfigure the role of the aesthetic between 1917 and 1934. The book argues that this "unfinished art"--precisely because of its historic weakness as a representative institution in Mexico and Brazil, where the bourgeois stage had not (yet) coalesced--was at the forefront of struggles to redefine the relationship between art and social change. Drawing on extensive archival research, Sarah J. Townsend reveals the importance of projects and texts that belie the rhetoric of rupture and immediacy associated with the avant-garde: ethnographic operas with ties to the recording industry, populist puppet plays, children's radio programs about the wonders of technology, a philosophical drama about the birth of a new race, and an antifascist spectacle written for (but never performed at) a theater shut down by the police. Ultimately, the book makes the case that the very category of avant-garde art is bound up in the experience of dependency, delay, and the uneven development of capitalism.

Every year, countless young adults from affluent, Western nations travel to Brazil to train in capoeira, the dance/martial art form that is one of the most visible strands of the Afro-Brazilian cultural tradition. In Search of Legitimacy explores why "first world" men and women leave behind their jobs, families, and friends to pursue a strenuous training regimen in a historically disparaged and marginalized practice. Using the concept of apprenticeship pilgrimage--studying with a local master at a historical point of origin--the author examines how non-Brazilian capoeiristas learn their art and claim legitimacy while navigating the complexities of wealth disparity, racial discrimination, and cultural appropriation.

The lens of dance can provide a multifaceted view of the present-day Cuban experience. Cuban contemporary dance, or tecnica cubana as it is known throughout Latin America, is a highly evolved hybrid of ballet, North American modern dance, Afro-Cuban tradition, flamenco and Cuban nightclub cabaret. Unlike most dance forms, tecnica was created intentionally with government backing. For Cuba, a dancing country, it was natural--and highly effective--for the Revolutionary regime to link national image with the visceral power of dance. Written by a dancer who traveled and worked in Cuba from the 1970s to the present, this book provides an inside look at daily life in Cuba. From watching the great Alicia Alonso, to describing the economic trials of the 1990s "Special Period," the author uses history, humor, personal experience, rich description and extensive interviews to reveal contemporary life and dance in Cuba.

One woman embarked on a dance journey around the world, finding out how each dance tells a story of its country and learning how beautiful life can be when you take the lead. If you could do anything you wanted, what would it be? Aliénor Salmon was working as a happiness researcher in Bangkok when a friend asked her the question that turned life as she knew it on its heels. A novice dancer but experienced social researcher, the Franco-British Aliénor headed west from Bangkok to dance her way through Latin America. As she learns eighteen dances, each native to the countries she visits, she engages with esoteric customs, traditions, and cultures. Through conversations and arduous studio hours, she learns that every step, pivot, and shake thrums with an undeniable spirit of place. And that in a world where we are over-connected but increasingly disconnected from one another, dance offers an authentically human experience. One that allows her to develop tolerance, kindness, truth, and love by holding the hands of a stranger and gazing into their eyes for the time of a song. With her fearless and candid approach, Aliénor will inspire you to take the reins of your own life--and have some fun along the way. In this dance-travelogue, you'll learn the history and steps of dances like salsa, samba, and tango, enjoy a resplendent meditation on happiness and wanderlust, and receive a life-affirming answer to the question: How do I take the first step?

What does it mean to give life to movement? Tamara Williams answers this question through an ethnographic study and historical mapping of the Silvestre Dance Technique created by Brazilian master teacher, dancer, and choreographer, Rosangela Silvestre. In the first book solely dedicated to Silvestre Technique, Williams illustrates how the applied theory of the triangles of inspiration, expression and balance of training can lead to self-actualization through implementation in daily life practice. From the Brazilian arts movements of the 1970s, to the sociopolitical themes of the Blocos Afros, to the global practice of Silvestre Technique presently, the author explores the impact of the Body Universe in understanding self-capacity and capability. Williams investigates the functionality of the technique through a series of interviews, physical practice, and training.

While Africans and their descendants have lived in Mexico for centuries, many Afro-Mexicans do not consider themselves to be either black or African. For almost a century, Mexico has promoted an ideal of its citizens as having a combination of indigenous and European ancestry. This obscures the presence of African, Asian, and other populations that have contributed to the growth of the nation. However, performance studies--of dance, music, and theatrical events--reveal the influence of African people and their cultural productions on Mexican society. In this work, Anita González articulates African ethnicity and artistry within the broader panorama of Mexican culture by featuring dance events that are performed either by Afro-Mexicans or by other ethnic Mexican groups about Afro-Mexicans. She illustrates how dance reflects upon social histories and relationships and documents how residents of some sectors of Mexico construct their histories through performance. Festival dances and, sometimes, professional staged dances point to a continuing negotiation among Native American, Spanish, African, and other ethnic identities within the evolving nation of Mexico. These performances embody the mobile histories of ethnic encounters because each dance includes a spectrum of characters based upon local situations and historical memories.