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Abstract
This dissertation uses critical theories of performance to examine contemporary Latina/o plays and performances in Los Angeles in order to provide an important critical paradigm for dealing with issues of identity and the artistic self-representation of community, once considered an ethnic minority, but which is fast becoming a majoritarian social a political municipal force. Through an exploration of the textual and performative strategies employed in Latina/o Theater and Performance I illustrate the ways in which these works function as a means of cultural transmission, transcultural identity building, revisionist histories and social and political acts of resistance.
My introductory chapter, “Transcultural Negotiations of Identity in U.S. Latina/o Theater” traces the continued staging of multiple traditions and national heritages in contemporary Latino/a Theater. I argue that through the staging of the transcultural subject-in-process, Latina/o Theater facilitates cross-cultural Latina/o identifications and allows for the fostering and strengthening of pan-Latino affiliations. Chapter two, “Contemporary Re-visions of Latina/o Los Angeles History,” discusses both theatrical and community-based performances that act as revisionist histories of Los Angeles history while also reclaiming once central Latina/o public spaces in the city. Chapter three, “Minority voices, mainstream stages,” utilizes the history of the Latino Theater Initiative, housed at Los Angeles' Mark Taper Forum, as a case study from which to trace the trajectory of Latina/o theater from its political, grassroots origins, to its struggles and successes on mainstream, commercial stages. Chapter four, “Towards transindigenous identification,” begins to explore the idea of transindigeneity in performance. I utilize a comparative analysis between the use of indigenous ritual and iconography in U.S. Chicana/o & Latina/o Theater as a means of re-membering, reclaiming and recalling an ancient indigenous past with performances of transindigeneity, which call upon a living and changing culture that is actively affected by globalization and transnationalism.
