Staging race: Blackness, performance, and citizenship in Afro-Latin American writers (1940-2000)

This dissertation project investigates the body as a medium of racial representation by looking at five Afro-Latin American artists in Brazil, Peru, and Colombia between 1940-2000. In conversation with performance studies and critical race studies, my project analyzes the emergence of an Afro-Latin American public sphere through distinct yet interconnected forms of art and activism. In particular, my study focuses on Abdias do Nascimento’s experimental theater, Nicomedes Santa Cruz’s radio broadcasting, Victoria Santa Cruz’s choreographies, Delia Zapata Olivella’s dance manuals, and Manuel Zapata Olivella’s street theater. In doing so, my research underlines how their respective performances created a vocabulary to enunciate everyday experiences of racism and discrimination in the region. I argue these artists used performances to reinvent discourses on blackness, cultural memory, and the meaning of democracy in multiracial societies.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Spanish

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2020

Author dc:creator

• Suarez Ontaneda, Juan

Contributors dc:contributor

• Meléndez, Mariselle
• Goldman, Dara
• Ledesma, Eduardo
• Hertzman, Marc
• Solis, Gabriel

• Afro-Latin American Writers
• Black Performance
• Afro-Latin American Public Sphere
• Racial Debates in Latin America

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2020 Juan Suarez Ontaneda

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/108289

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/108289