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The Sor Juana Revue

Performance, lecture and discussion about Sor Juana Ines de La Cruz.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010
4:00 PM
1330 Macgowan Hall
Los Angeles, CA United States

Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz was the first woman playwright and poet in the New World; she lived from 1648-1695 in Mexico City. 

Performance: Jesusa Rodríguez performs sections of Sor Juana’s poem “First Dream” to music sung by Catalina Pereda

Lecture and Discussion: Diana Taylor speaks on the significance of Sor Juana.
Reading: Prof. Alicia Gaspar de Alba reads from her novel, Sor Juana's Second Dream

Jesusa Rodríguez is Mexico’s most influential cabaret and political performance artist. Her work crosses from pre-Columbian indigenous forms to opera, from revue sketch and carpa to activist street performances. She ran the famous cabaret, El Hábito, in Mexico City with her partner, Liliana Felipe, for fifteen years. She currently leads the Resistencia Creativa movement in Mexico, using the key strategy of "massive cabaret" as a tool for political action. She has also performed in major venues throughout Europe and North America. 

Catalina Pereda started her voice training in Mexico City with Gabriel Mijares and Verónica Murúa at the National School of Music, Mexico. She continued her musical education at the University of Michigan under the guidance of Shirley Verrett and Freda Herseth. Solo recitals in Mexico, the US and Spain include: the International Festival Cervantino (2008) singing Schumann's Frauenliebe und Leben with Laleget Dance Company and at the City Museum of Mexico City (2009) with a multidisciplinary performance of songs by Schubert, Brahms, and Dvorak. She participated as a guest artist in the First University Festival of Mexican Art Song at the National School of Music, in Mexico City. Parallel to her musical studies, she holds a BA in Philosophy from the UNAM, Mexico. She also holds a Master's Degree from the University of Michigan.

Diana Taylor is professor of Performance Studies and Spanish at NYU and the founding Director of the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics. She is the author of numerous books, including Theatre of Crisis: Drama and Politics in Latin America (1991) and The Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas (Duke U.P., 2003). She is co-editor of several volumes of critical articles and of plays, including Stages of Conflict: A Reader in Latin American Theatre and Performance (Michigan U. P.), Holy Terrors: Latin American Women Perform (Duke U.P., 2004 and Negotiating Performance in Latin/o America: Gender, Sexuality and Theatricality (Duke U.P., 1994).

Alicia Gaspar de Alba is Professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies, English, and Women’s Studies at UCLA. She has published nine books—a mixture of novels, poems, and critical essays—including Making a Killing: Femicide, Free Trade, and La Frontera, Velvet Barrios: Popular Culture and Chicana /o Sexualities, and La Llorona on the Longfellow Bridge: poetry y otras móvidas, 1986-2001. Her awards include the International Latino Book Award for Best Spanish-Language Mystery for Sangre en el desierto: las muertas de Juárez(2009), the Lambda Literary Foundation Award for Best Lesbian Mystery (2005), and the Best Historical Fiction Award for Sor Juana's Second Dream(2000).

 

Cost: Free and open to the public

Sponsor(s): Center for Mexican Studies, UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, Chicano Studies Research Center, Spanish and Portuguese, Center for Performance Studies, Center for Women Studies.