"Drawing from her scholarly background in performance, literary studies, and cultural studies, Irene Mata traces how Latinx performance art intersects with the work of recent activism on issues affecting Latinx communities. One way of doing this is by understanding that while performance itself is often ephemeral and "in the moment," building an archive of knowledge of how these performances are created and used as an important roadmap for community activism for current and future artists. She also argues that written knowledge of these performances is important as a tool of mentorship, particularly for students, performers, and scholars of color, who may have less access to mentorship, that recognizes their needs and backgrounds. By comparing older texts to new ones, such as with Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues to Virginia Grise and Irma Mayorga's The Panza Monologues, Mata is able to explore the similarities between the texts and performances of each piece, while also diving deeper into understanding the ways that Panza situates itself in telling stories of marginalized communities that are/were rarely represented on stages. Not all of the forms of performance in the manuscript take place in a theater--others, such as the 2012 No Papers, No Fear Ride for Justice, combine performance traditions with activism in advocating for undocumented communities in the U.S. that draw inspiration from the Freedom Riders bus trips into the Deep South in the Civil Rights era. Another fascinating study considers thehistory of lowriding and how it has created a space for community and collaboration among many different marginalized groups."--
Exploring cultural resistance by creating and archiving Latinx performance art
Exploring cultural resistance by creating and archiving Latinx performance art
Performance is often seen as ephemeral, a condition that seemingly reduces its activist possibilities. After all, not everyone can take part or bear witness. Beyond the Moment shows how Latinx artists have responded with a theater of dissent that endures—performance art that also documents and can itself be archived, creating opportunities for sustained solidarity and resistance.
Through close readings of works such as Coco Fusco’s multi-genre performance A Field Guide for Female Interrogators, Irene Mata theorizes what she calls “textual mentoring.” This method involves tracing previous moments of resistance, archiving the creative process itself, and transforming the performance into a pedagogical tool. By means of textual mentoring, a work like The Panza Monologues becomes a lesson in confronting systemic oppression through collaborative storytelling. Mata also shows how the 2012 No Papers, No Fear Ride for Justice, a multi-state immigrant-rights action, relies on a vocabulary of refusal of movements of the past—like the Freedom Rides of the Civil Rights era—and continues its activism beyond its immediate performance context by digitally archiving its process. With an emphasis on intersectional critique, Beyond the Moment positions performance as a radical form of resistance that educates and inspires across generations and movements.
