Spectating the Real in Latinx American Theatre/Performance

As Augusto Boal has stated, the theatre can be a political tool to encourage the “spect-actor” to be part of a movement or an experience. This course will study the impact of political theatrical and performance works of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in different countries in Latin America as well as Latinx in the U.S. We will focus on a variety of manifestations of how theatre and performance propel types of cultural and political activism, engage and stimulate the audience, and encourage us to think of the “process” of creation, movement, and involvement. Different theoretical frameworks (political theatre, scenarios, performance constellations, theater of the real, postdramatic theatre, participatory performance) will allow us to focus on both traditional political theater and digital networks of protest (the theatre of the oppressed, teatro campesino, teatro abierto, teatroxlaidentidad, #YoSoy132, NiUnaMenos, NiUnaMas, Lastesis, Expresión Mole). We will also explore how theatre, performance and visual artists respond to repressive governments as well as identity and gender politics in symbolic ways, as seen in the work of Griselda Gambaro, Federico León, Lola Arias, Mariano Pensotti, Guillermo Calderón, Manuela Infante, Mariana de Althaus, Regina José Galindo, Mauricio Kartun, Violeta Luna, Teatro Línea de Sombra, Lagartijas tiradas al sol, Guillermo Gómez Peña, and Xandra Ibarra.