Trans/Acting

Latin American and Latino Performing Arts

Jacqueline E. Bixler and Laurietz Seda (Eds.)

2009
266 pages
ISBN 9781611483215
Bucknell Studies in Latin American Literature and Theory

Trans/Acting: Latin American and Latino Performing Arts comprises fourteen new essays by leading scholars of Latin American and US Latino theater as well as the performance script Mexterminator vs. The Global Predator by Guillermo Gómez-Peña. The essays focus on contemporary Latin American and US Latino dramatic texts and performances. They range from a panoramic view of transculturation in twentieth-century Latin American theater to in-depth analyses of individual plays from Cuba (Abelardo Estorino), Mexico (Sabina Berman, Vicente Leñero, Paquita la del Barrio), Argentina (Rafael Spregelburd, Patricia Suárez, Susana Torres Molina), Uruguay (Gabriel Peveroni), and the US (Guillermo Reyes, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, and the Original Latin Kings of Comedy). By deploying the concept of trans/acting, with its connotations of negotiation and/or exchange, in various theoretical ways the essays explore and challenge the parameters of culturation, nationalism, gender, genre, translation, and adaptation in the context of globalization, shifting borders, and new cultural paradigms. The study of contemporary theater and performance arts in this volume is complemented by trans/actor Gómez-Peña's Mexterminator vs. The Global Predator, a strikingly transgressive script that underscores the performative nature of territorial and symbolic border crossings. Exploring the transformation of Latin American theater from the local to the global and the national to the transnational, Trans/Acting will appeal to scholars of Latin American studies, performance art, and globalization.

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Reviews

"This highly readable and engaging collection, which will be of value to scholars and students alike, provides a timely reminder of the continuing vibrancy and innovation in Latin America and among the Latino population in the United States."--Catherine Leen, BSS, 89 (2012)

About the editors:

Jacqueline E. Bixler is Alumni Distinguished Professor of Spanish at Virginia Tech and Associate Editor of the Latin American Theatre Review. Her book, Convention and Transgression: The Theatre of Emilio Carballido (Bucknell, 1997), was translated and published in 2001 by the Universidad Veracruzana. She is the editor of Sediciosas seducciones: Sexo, poder y palabras en el teatro de Sabina Berman (2004) and co-editor with Stuart A. Day of the collection El teatro de Rascón Banda: Voces en el umbral (2005). Bixler has also published essays on Mexican, Argentine, and Chilean theater in such publicationas as Latin American Research Review, Theatre Journal, Latin American Theatre Review, Hispania, Gestos, Tramoya, Literature Mexicana, and Revista Teatro XXI.

Laurietz Seda is Associate Professor of Spanish at the University of Connecticut-Storrs, where she received the 2006 Outstanding Faculty of the Year Award from the Puerto Rican/Latin American Cultural Center. She is the editor of the anthology La nueva dramaturgia puertorriqueña, co-editor of Teatro de frontera 11/12, and guest editor for a special issue of Latin American Theatre Review (Spring 2004) on Caribbean theater. She has published essays on Puerto Rican, Cuban, Mexican, Argentine, and Chilean theater in publications such as Hispanic Journal, Latin American Theatre Review, Gestos, Conjunto, and Revista Teatro XXI.

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