Table of Contents

List of Illustrations ix
Preface xiii
Unimagined Communities / Diana Taylor and Roselyn Costantino 1
Diana Raznovich (Argentina) 25
Manifesto 2000 of Feminine Humor / Translated by Marlene Ramirez-Cancio and Shanna Lorenz 27
From the Waist Down / Translated by Shanna Lorenz 43
What is Diana Raznovich Laughing At? / Diana Taylor 73
Griselda Gambaro (Argentina) 93
Strip / Translated by Marguerite Feitlowitz 95
Diamela Eltit (Chile) 105
Excerpts from Lumperica (E. Luminata): "From Her Forgetfulness Project" and "Dress Rehearsal" / Translated by Ronald Christ 107
Diamela Eltit: Performing Action in Dictatorial Chile/ Robert Neustadt 117
Denise Stoklos (Brazil) 135
Selections from Writings on Essential Theatre/ Translated by Diana Taylor 137
Casa / Translated by Denise Stoklos and Diana Taylor 140
The Gestural Art of Reclaiming Utopia: Denise Stoklos at Play with the Hysterical-Historical / Leslie Damasceno 152
Astrid Hadad (Mexico) 179
Selected Lyrics and Monologue Fragments / Translated by Roselyn Costantino and Lorna Scott 181
Politics and Culture in a Diva's Diversion: The Body of Astrid Hadad in Performance / Roselyn Costantino 187
Jesusa Rodriguez (Mexico) 209
Sor Juana in Prison: A Virtual Pageant Play / Translated by Diana Taylor with Marlene Ramirez-Cancio 211
Nahuatlismo: The Aztec Acting Method / Translated by Marlene Ramirez-Cancio 227
The Conquest According to La Malinche / Translated by Marlene Ramirez-Cancio 231
Excerpts from "Genesis," "Barbie: The Revenge of the Devil,' and "Censorship: The Bald Rat in the Garbage" / Translated by Roselyn Costantino 235
Katia Tirado and Ema Villanueva (Mexico) 245
Wrestling the Phallus, Resisting Amnesia: The Body Politics of Chilanga Performance Artists / Antonio Prieto Stambaugh 247
Sabina Berman (Mexico) 275
The Agony of Ecstasy: Four One-Act Plays on a Single Theme / Translated by Adam Versenyi 279
Petrona de la Cruz Cruz (Mexico) 291
A Desperate Woman: A Play in Two Acts / Translated by Shanna Lorenz 293
Eso si pasa aqui: Indigenous Women Performing Revoultions in Mayan Chiapas / Teresa Marrero 311
Teatro la Mascara (Colombia) 331
Teatro la mascara: Twenty-Eight Years of Invisibilized Theatre / Marlene Ramirez-Cancio 333
Teresa Ralli (Peru) 353
Fragments of Memory / Translated by Margaret Carson 355
Excerpts from Antigona / Jose Watanabe, Translated by Margaret Carson 365
Rosa Luisa Marquez (Puerto Rico) 371
Between Theatre and Performance / Translation and photos by Miguel Villefane 373
Teresa Hernandez (Puerto Rico) 385
How Complex Being Is, or The Complex of Being / Translated by Marlene Ramirez-Cancio 387
Teresa Hernandez vs. the Puerto Rican Complex / Vivian Martinez Tabares, Translated by Margaret Carson 394
Tania Bruguera (Cuba) 399
Performing Greater Cuba: Tania Bruguera and the Burden of Guilt / Jose Munoz 401
Selected Bibliography 417
Contributors 441

Promotional Information

Translations of texts by important Latin American women playwrights, and performance artists, together with essays about their work.

About the Author

Diana Taylor is Professor of Performance Studies and Spanish and Director of the Hemispheric Institute on Performance and Politics at New York University. Among her books are The Archive and the Repertoire: Cultural Memory and Performance in the Americas, Disappearing Acts: Spectacles of Gender and Nationalism in Argentina’s “Dirty War,” and Negotiating Performance: Gender, Sexuality, and Theatricality in Latin/o America, all published by Duke University Press. Roselyn Costantino is Associate Professor of Spanish and Women’s Studies at Pennsylvania State University.

Roselyn Costantino is Associate Professor of Spanish and Women’s Studies at Pennsylvania State University.

Reviews

"We can't have theater if we have nothing to say. I was told that we wouldn't have Coltrane if Miles Davis hadn't let him play at his own gig, and that Miles let him play a long time, because he could see that Coltrane had a lot to say. Traveling with Diana, which I have had the great fortune to do, and being introduced to these extraordinary performers both on these pages and live and in person was flat-out a life-altering experience. This book turns us on to our cousin Americans and to their passion, their skill, their intellect, their purpose, their resolve. To go to music again, I think of Thelonius Monk, who said, 'The cats I like are the cats who take chances.' These are chancing cats, and enrapturing ones."--Anna Deavere Smith "The editors have done a remarkable job in assembling an important group of women playwrights and performers whose work remains terribly under publicized. The work included in this volume provides an excellent introduction to the diverse ways Latin American women have used the performing arts to engage the particular political and cultural conditions under which they live."--David Roman, author of Acts of Intervention: Performance, Gay Culture, and AIDS "a crazy quilt account of women performing theater in Latin America... Holy Terrors is a work rich in ideas, history and personalities, and an important source book for learning, not only about theater in these eight Latin American countries, but also about key political issues, the risks of free expression, and the health and nearly unchartable diversity of the women's movement." The Women's Review of Books.