Theater and community : an architectural language for social integration

The experimentation with an alternative form of theater, which questioned the tradition dramatic heritage , emerged in Puerto Rico during the second half of the 1960's. This new form of theater, known as Experimental Theater, searched for a new aesthetic language rooted in the use of the human body as an instrument of expression. At the same time, the companies and groups - composed mostly of college students - working with this kind of theater had a well-defined social, cultural and political agenda, which was clearly reflected in the nature of their performances. The tradition of the Puerto Rican Experimental Theater has survived until today. It has experienced a change in its social and political approaches, which now are focused in the reinforcement of the Puerto Rican culture and the searching for the definition of a contemporary national identity . This idea of contemporary national identity presumes the breaking with the traditional system of dramatic representation used in the classical theater as well as in the early models of theatrical experimentation. New groups work with new codes of national representation detached from convention al cannon, creating a vibrant and contested imagery. In this line of work, the Puerto Rican group Teatreros de Cayey, directed by the theater professor Rosa Luisa Marquez and the Puerto Rican artist Antonio Martorell present a paradigm in and of themselves. Marquez and Martorell propose a work based on a theatrical dialogue between dramatic text and pictorial image. At the same time their work has focused on its interaction with low income communities as well as with school and elderly hospitals and institutions. Their work is based in the assumption that people don't have to be actors to make theater and that theater can be used as a community tool in order to produce social transformations.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Architecture.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

1996

Author dc:creator

• Rodríguez, Ernesto F

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Murice Keith Smith.My thesis proposes a design for a new performing space in the metropolitan area of San Juan , Puerto Rico. The space will be conceived as a structure shared by the existing low-income community of Pinones and Marquez and Martorell's theater company. This marriage seeks to break the wall that exist between the theater community and the low-income communities that these companies work with. The selection of appropriate building systems and their deployment within the landscape will respond to the different aspects that define Marquez and Martorell's theater company. At the same time the design will stimulate interaction between outside professional theater groups and inside community theater.

• Architecture.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/69738

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/69738