Performing Queer Latinidad: Dance, Sexuality, Politics (Triangulations: Lesbian/Gay/Queer Theater/Drama/Performance) - Tapa dura

Winner, Latino Studies Section of Latin American Studies Association Award for Best Book 2013--Latin American Studies Association Winner, Congress of Research in Dance (CORD) Outstanding Publication Award, 2013--Congress of Research in Dance Special Citation: The Society of Dance History Scholars de la Torre Bueno Prize, 2012--SDHS de la Torre Bueno "Performing Queer Latinidad pays careful attention to the socio-eco-political conditions at the center of each site of performance, and thoughtfully identifies the effects of these often-complicated factors on Latinas/os living together in these spaces. A significant contribution to Latina/o studies, queer studies, and performance studies, this book clearly and effectively evinces performances that bring together queer and straight Latinas/os in public spaces to engage in 'choreographies of resistance' for homemaking purposes." --Theatre Journal-- (05/30/2014) "Performing Queer Latinidad is an excellent and important book, whose theoretical interventions are lucid, poetic, and accessible, making it appropriate for advanced scholars and undergraduate students alike." --MELUS--Patricia Ybarra "MELUS "

Performing Queer Latinidad highlights the critical role that performance played in the development of Latina/o queer public culture during the 1990s and early 2000s. The book charts Latina/o cultural affinities or latinidad in queer spaces in the United States over a 15-year period that saw a dramatic increase in the size and influence of the Latina/o population along with the growing scrutiny of the public spaces where latinidad could circulate. Performing Queer Latinidad argues that performances---from concert dance and street protest to the choreographic strategies deployed by dancers at nightclubs---served as critical meeting points and practices through which LGBT and other non-normative sex practitioners of Latin American descent (individuals with greatly differing cultures, histories of migration or annexation to the United States, and contemporary living conditions) encountered each other and forged social, cultural, and political bonds. At a time when latinidad ascended to the national public sphere in mainstream commercial and political venues and Latina/o public space was increasingly threatened by the re-development of urban centers and a revived anti-immigrant campaign, queer Latinas/os in places such as the Bronx, San Antonio, Austin, Phoenix, and Rochester, N.Y., returned to performance to claim spaces and ways of being that allowed their queerness and latinidad to coexist. These social events of performance and their attendant aesthetic communication strategies served as critical sites and tactics for creating and sustaining queer latinidad.