DRLIT-UA 293 - Theatre of Latin America

Institution:

New York University

Subject:

Description:

An introduction to the history, theories, and practices of Latin American drama, focusing on the 20th century. We pay special attention to the historical reinvention of European-based theatrical forms in the Americas through their continuous interaction with non-European cultural forms. Through the plays of leading dramatists-including Jorge Díaz, Major/Minor in Dramatic Literature Egon Wolff, and Sergio Vodanovic (Chile); José Triana (Cuba); René Marquez and Luis Rafael Sánchez (Puerto Rico); Isaac Chocrón (Venezuela); Emilio Carballido, Luisa Josefina Hernández, Sabina Berman, and Elena Garro (Mexico); and Osvaldo Dragún, Eduardo Pavlovsky, Roberto Cossa, and Griselda Gambaro (Argentina)-we explore the significance of modernist and postmodernist dramatic forms in cultures where industrial modernity is an insecure social context. We study the wealth of oppositional theatre in Latin America-exemplified by Augusto Boal's "theatre of the oppressed"-in relation to the historical use (or abuse) of theatrical spectacle as a political means to control peoples, from the early Spanish conquerors to recent authoritarian state leaders. We read postcolonial Latin American theories of culture and art, such as hybridity, transculturation, Brazil's modernist and anticolonial antropofagía, and the "aesthetics of hunger," drawing on the work of Fernando Ortiz, Angel Rama, and Néstor García Canclini, among others. We consider "magical realism" in the theatre as a social poetics of scarcity.

Credits:

4.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.nyu.edu

Phone Number:

(212) 998-1212

Regional Accreditation:

Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools

Calendar System:

Semester

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