“Brown Medeas:” Reconfiguring Mestizaje for the 21st Century

Whereas due attention has been granted to the “black Medeas” of the post-seventies U.S. stage, the “brown Medeas” of post-eighties/post-movimiento Chicana/o theatre have drawn much less scholarly interest. In response to this perceived lacuna in critical analysis, the present paper examines three revisions of Medea’s myth by Chicana/o theatre practitioners. “La Malinche,” by Carlos Morton (1996-97), “The Hungry Woman: A Mexican Medea,” by Cherríe Moraga (2000), and “Mojada: A Medea in Los Angeles,” by Luis Alfaro (2015), are taken up here as characteristic instances of contemporary Chicana/o reception of Greek tragic myth. The paper will argue that this new addition to Medea’s afterlife signals a crucial new development in Chicana/o theatre toward opening up to transcultural flows, syncrisis and negotiation, and, by extension, a shift in Chicana/o cultural and identity politics within the U.S. More specifically, we will discuss why and how revis(ion)ing Medea, correlating her with figures originating in indigenous mythico-cultural material (namely, La Malinche and La Llorona), remotivating her (and their) actions and even reimagining the outcomes of her (and their) stories in the mythoplays under consideration can be interpreted as a gesture toward alternative forms of affiliation, shifting political coalitions, and an emergent—decolonization-oriented but twenty-first-century-specific—mestizaje ethos and consciousness

Digital Theatre Meets Classical Reception in a Multimodal and Transmedial Approach to English Literacy

The present paper puts forth and delineates a research project at the first stages of its development, with a view to attracting constructive feedback for it. The project builds on the intersection of four lines of scholarship and practice: 1. Digital Theatre in Education; 2. Classical Reception (contemporary Anglophone reception of Greek tragic literature); 3. Adult Education; 4. English as a Foreign Language (EFL) education. It employs mainly the methodology of action research and, by means of it, seeks to develop an alternative model for teaching EFL to adult learners. The said model integrates and jointly implements Theatre in Education methods (specifically, those of Process Drama) and Classical Reception resources (both Greek tragic ante-texts in English translation and their Anglophone revisions), with digital and media technologies, in the light of recent developments in Multiliteracies Pedagogy and Transformative Learning Theory. The practice-based research in question advances a socially engaged EFL model that brings together Digital Theatre in Education and the pedagogical potential of Classical Reception to serve the educational needs of adult learners studying in Greek Second Chance Schools, targeting especially those coming from disadvantaged backgrounds. This paper discusses the theoretical basis and framework of the project, as well as its methodological contours. It also calls attention to its scientific and social contribution and touches upon its innovative aspects.  

Socrates Now or The Apology Project: From Greek Roots to Transnational Routes

Since the 1980s, Greek American theatre practitioners have been making their presence increasingly felt in the theatre and performing arts landscape of the United States (U.S.). Their work evinces that Greek American theatre has come a long way from the Modern Greek Diaspora theatre, which began in Chicago at the end of the nineteenth century and flourished in several U.S. cities during the interwar period. The motives, springboards, and driving forces of contemporary Greek American theatre are markedly different from those underpinning the work of early agents of Greek American theatre in the U.S., whether individual practitioners, troupes, or companies. The aim now is not to serve the ethnic imperatives of cultivating the Greek language, spreading Greek culture, and staying in close contact with the ancestral roots. Instead of serving the centripetal forces of Greek history and tradition, as well as the idea(l)s of ethnic identity and belonging, the latest works of Greek American theatre artists are animated by the centrifugal energy of the desire for a reconfigured transnational and transcultural selfhood. Their commitments lie more squarely than ever before with extroversion, movement, mixture, and interaction. The present paper discusses Yannis Simonides’ Socrates Now (or The Apology Project) as an illustrative example of the new directions Greek American theatre has embarked upon in the last few decades. It places special emphasis on what this work reveals about the emerging trends in Greek American theatre’s reception of the Greek classics—the latter being the erstwhile core of Greek American theatrical activity in the U.S. We argue that Simonides’ Socrates Now offers an alternative understanding of Greek American theatre and (its) classical reception praxis by acting upon the will to assemble a viable and generative, performing and performable, Greekness from heterogeneous formal and conceptual elements, in line with an ethic that we shall call, after Vassilis Lambropoulos (2016), transcompositional

Pintos inspirados en Edipo: la plaga de las prisiones en dos obras chicanas sobre el mito prototípico de la crisis

Este artículo presenta dos revisiones del mito trágico de Edipo a la luz de los nuevos estudios sobre crisis carcelarias americanas. En 2010, la obra teatral de Luis Alfaro, “Oedipus el rey” (basada en el “Edipo tirano” de Sófocles) analiza la crisis nacional en las prisiones, que ha tenido terribles secuelas en la vida del barrio. Un año más tarde, Ernest Drucker acuñó el término “plaga de las prisiones” para describir el fenómeno de las encarcelaciones en masa en los EE. UU., explicando sus efectos en las comunidades pobres de color, como las del barrio. Con su dramatización de la experiencia carcelaria Americana como una amenaza a la identidad personal y colectiva del barrio, la obra de Law Chavez, “Señora de la Pinta” (2012) parece dar respuesta al estudio de Drucker y a la obra de Alfaro. El análisis de ambas piezas teatrales nos revelará el impacto de la crisis carcelaria en la vida cotidiana del barrio y en su “chicanidad”.This article discusses two revisions of the tragic myth of Oedipus in the light of recent studies on the American prison crisis. In 2010, Luis Alfaro’s “Oedipus el Rey,” a play that draws on Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus, addressed the national prison crisis which has encroached on barrio life with dreadful repercussions. One year later, Ernest Drucker employed the term “plague of prisons” to describe the phenomenon of mass incarceration in the US and shed light on its effects on poor communities of color, such as barrio communities. As if responding to Drucker’s study and Alfaro’s play, Law Chavez’s “Señora de la Pinta,” presented in 2012, gets its inspiration from the myth of Oedipus to dramatize US prison experience as a plague threatening the self and the barrio. The two plays are examined for what they reveal about the impact of the prison crisis on Chicano barrio life and Chicanidad

NÃO-STILL LIFE: UM RETRATO-MOSAICO DE DIMITRIS PAPAIOANNOU

The original review essay “Non-Still Life: a Mosaic Portrait of Dimitris Papaioannou” offers a panoramic view of the work of the greek painter and choreographer Dimitris Papaoannou, from his artistic initiation to the international tour of Still Life, and it was written based on the analysis of materios form the press recording made available by the artist and texts developed by the author herself. The preceding presentation, “The Mosaic-Dimitris by Aikaterini Delikonstantinidou” giver support to the translation by pointing out relevant aspects of its process and organization in six items. In the “Preliminary Notes”, the figures of speech presented in the title are developed, which reiterate the author's objectives. The "Introduction" draw connections between art and life that will be further explored by the following item, “The Body at the Center of the Narrative". In “Large-scale work at sports events”, the artist's expectations and contradictions are discussed. In “Choreographies of Existence”, highlights the conceptual choreographic synthesis that develops from how the artist deals with the reception of his pieces, and finally the author reaffirms in the “Concluding Notes” the multiplicity and breadth of the choreographer's production, associating them to philosophical questions related to the the piece named in the title. KeywordsDimitris Papaioannou. Contemporary Greek Theater. Contemporary Theater Direction. Choreography. Physical Theater.O ensaio original "Non-Still Life: a Mosaic Portrait of Dimitris Papaioannou" oferece uma vista panorâmica da obra do pintor e coreógrafo grego Dimitris Papaoannou, desde sua iniciação artística até a turnê internacional de Still Life e foi escrito com base na apreciação e análise dos registros disponibilizados pela imprensa, pelo artista ou desenvolvidos pela própria autora. A apresentação que o precede, "O Mosaico-Dimitris de Aikaterini Delikonstantinidou" vem dar apoio à tradução, pontuando aspectos relevantes acerca do seu processo e organização em seis itens. Nas "Noções Preliminares", desenvolvem-se as figuras de linguagem presentes no título, que reiteram os objetivos da autora. Na "Introdução" são delineadas as conexões entre arte e vida que são aprofundadas no tópico seguinte, "O Corpo no Centro da Narrativa". Em "Trabalhos de larga escala em eventos esportivos", expectativas e contradições do artista são discutidas. Em "Coreografias da Existência", ressalta-se a síntese coreográfica conceitual que vai se desenvolvendo a partir de como o artista encara a recepção das peças e, finalmente, a autora reafirma nas "Notas Conclusivas" a multiplicidade e amplitude da produção do coreógrafo, associando-as a questões filosóficas relativas ao espetáculo do título.  Palavras-chaveDimitris Papaioannou. Teatro Grego Contemporâneo. Encenação Contemporânea. Coreografia. Teatro Físico

Luis Alfaro’s Tragic Barrio as a Spatial Hermeneutic of Barrio-Bound Chicananess

In Luis Alfaro’s Greek-inflected mythoplays the Chicana counterparts of the tragic figures of Electra and Clytemnestra, Jocasta, and Medea are recast and as “an old-school chola,” “a total veterana,” “a banda Queen,” and “a mojada.” The common thread that weaves through Alfaro’s quasi-mythical yet all-too-human Chicanas is their boundness to the ambivalent space of the barrio. Their relation to it is where Alfaro’s revisions slide between Greek and American tragedy. The barrio itself emerges as an American interpretative human geography tuned to the tragic mode. This paper discusses how, in Alfaro’s “trilogy,” the epistemological geography of the barrio becomes the filter through which he “receives” the mythical material, twenty-first-century realities, and the site of their encounter: the syncretic theater praxis. It also demonstrates how the tragic barrio in his plays emerges as a means of reviewing and critiquing masculinist politics and ethics operative in the real barrio world

Pride Concepts

Abstract and full text of the articles are freely available on www.degruyter.com (De Gruyter Open)

Λατινο/αμερικανική πρόσληψη του ελληνικού τραγικού μύθου: θεραπευτική (και) ριζοσπαστική πολιτική

Commendable and, in many cases, quite successful attempts have been made, in the last few decades, in the U.S. and elsewhere, to counter the devalorization and systematic exclusion of Latino/a American theatre by the hegemonic canon, and to promote the work of representative playwrights, performers, and theatre practitioners, more generally. However, the role and function of the Greek tragic myth, as a rich corpus of widely known yet contested material, for Latino/a theatre and for the communities this theatre engages and addresses have drawn little critical interest. The purpose of this project is to attempt to make up for this lack of critical analysis of Greek-inspired and -based Latino/a revisionary theatre (an important swathe of Latino/a cultural production), reverse its current state of marginalization, and foreground its rich potential for remedying social and cultural ills, but also for forging inter/cross-cultural bonds between the Greek and the Latino/a American cultures. In order to serve the said purpose, the present study examines the practice of creating “dramatic mythic revisions” (Chirico 2008) of ancient Greek tragic myths, as one which marks the fin-de-siècle and post-millennium theatre work of a number of playwrights who identify themselves as Latinos/as (and Chicanos/as), such as Carlos Morton, Cherríe Moraga, Luis Alfaro, and Caridad Svich. In the course of the study, this Greek-inflected revisionary practice on the part of Latino/a theatre artists is shown to be permeated by and advancing a new, critical mestizaje ethos and consciousness. Yet, specific focus is given throughout to the conceptions and uses of the “tragic mode” of the employed Greek myths by contemporary Latino/a mythoplays as bearing the potential for a radical politics (politics much more reflexive in its ethics and praxis), as well as therapeutic, or healing, potential. We also explore the various ways in which the foregoing potential is channeled by/through each of the “mythopoetic” revisionary theatre works included here (some of which, in fact, qualify as social theatre projects) towards Latino/a communities in/of crisis; that is, communities plagued with traumas and so-called social “diseases” (or nosoi). Fulfillment of the intentions of the present project requires embracing a variety of theoretical methodologies. Not a single theory or approach is used (although, admittedly, many of the most crucial parts of the analysis rely on insights gained from the fields of theatre and performance studies, ethnic and postcolonial studies, reception studies and tragic theory). Rather, a theoretical net comprising a number of different veins of thought is undergirding examination of the relationship between Greek tragic myth, Latino/a dramatic mythic revision, and the sociocultural contexts of both of them, as well as those (Euro American contexts) mediating between them. With respect to more practical methodological aspects: exploration and achievement of the objectives that this project set from its very beginning required the combined strategies of close reading of play scripts; literature survey; and related data collection and analysis. Among other things, reviews, official and unofficial production-related material, such as pre- and post-production reports, as well as recorded versions of the plays’ workshops and actual productions were surveyed; interviews were conducted, not only with the playwrights, but also with members of some of the communities in/of crisis addressed in the study; while, both in situ and online, archival work greatly benefited and facilitated this endeavor in each stage of its development.Αξιόλογες, και, σε πολλές περιπτώσεις, επιτυχημένες προσπάθειες έχουν καταβληθεί τις τελευταίες δεκαετίες, στις Η.Π.Α. και αλλού, για την ανατροπή της απαξίωσης και του συστηματικού αποκλεισμού του Λατινοαμερικανικού θεάτρου από τον ηγεμονικό κανόνα και την προώθηση του έργου αντιπροσωπευτικών θεατρικών συγγραφέων, ερμηνευτών και άλλων καλλιτεχνών του θεάτρου. Εντούτοις, ο ρόλος και οι λειτουργίες του Ελληνικού τραγικού μύθου για το Λατινοαμερικανικό θέατρο και τις κοινότητες που αυτό δραστηριοποιεί και στις οποίες απευθύνεται δεν έχει έλξει αρκετό κριτικό ενδιαφέρον. Η παρούσα μελέτη επιδιώκει να αποκαταστήσει την έλλειψη κριτικής ανάλυσης του Λατινοαμερικανικού αναθεωρητικού θεάτρου που αντλεί από τον αρχαίο Ελληνικό μύθο, να ανατρέψει την περιθωριοποίησή του και να αναδείξει τις πλούσιες δυνατότητες που αυτό φέρει για την αντιμετώπιση κοινωνικών παθήσεων, αλλά και για την ανάπτυξη διαπολιτισμικών σχέσεων μεταξύ των Ελληνικών και των Λατινοαμερικανικών πολιτισμών. Προς επίτευξη αυτού του σκοπού, η παρούσα μελέτη θα εξετάσει την πρακτική της δημιουργίας σύγχρονων «δραματικών μυθικών διασκευών» αρχαίων Ελληνικών τραγικών μύθων από θεατρικούς συγγραφείς που αυτοπροσδιορίζονται ως Latinos/as και Chicanos/as, και, συγκεκριμένα, από τους Carlos Morton, Cherríe Moraga, Luis Alfaro, και Caridad Svich. Στη διάρκεια της μελέτης αναδεικνύεται το γεγονός ότι η εν λόγω αναθεωρητική πρακτική διαπνέεται από και προάγει ένα νέο, κριτικό global/ized mestizaje ήθος και συνείδηση. Ωστόσο, η μελέτη εστιάζει ειδικότερα στις συλλήψεις και χρήσεις του «τραγικού τρόπου» των Ελληνικών μύθων από τις εν λόγω διασκευές ως κομίζοντα ριζοσπαστικές πολιτικές και θεραπευτικές δυνατότητες. Επιπρόσθετα, εξετάζονται οι ποικίλοι τρόποι με τους οποίους οι ανωτέρω δυνατότητες διοχετεύονται μέσω των «μυθοποιητικών» αναθεωρητικών θεατρικών έργων που συμπεριλαμβάνονται στη μελέτη προς Λατινοαμερικανικές κοινότητες κρίσεων ή σε κρίση, ήτοι κοινότητες που πάσχουν από κοινωνικές νόσους. Η επίτευξη των στόχων του υπό εκπόνηση ερευνητικού έργου καθιστά αναγκαίο τον εναγκαλισμό μιας ποικιλίας μεθοδολογιών. Στο βαθμό που επιχειρείται η προσαρμογή των μεθοδολογιών σε κάθε έργο, δεν γίνεται χρήση μόνο μίας θεωρίας/προσέγγισης, αν και κύρια μέρη της ανάλυσης που επιχειρείται έλκουν στοιχεία από τα πεδία του Θεάτρου και των Παραστατικών τεχνών, των Εθνοτικών και Μετααποικιοκρατικών Σπουδών, των Σπουδών Πρόσληψης και της Τραγικής Θεωρίας. Ένα θεωρητικό «δίχτυ» αποτελούμενο από διαφορετικές γραμμές και σχολές σκέψης υποστηρίζει την εξέταση της σχέσης μεταξύ του Ελληνικού τραγικού μύθου, των Λατινοαμερικανικών δραματικών μυθικών διασκευών, των κοινωνικοπολιτισμικών τους συγκειμένων, και των (κυρίως Ευρώ Αμερικανικών) συγκειμένων που δια-μεσολαβούν μεταξύ τους. Αναφορικά σε πιο πρακτικές μεθοδολογικές όψεις του ερευνητικού έργου, τα μέσα συλλογής δεδομένων και οι στρατηγικές διαχείρισης αυτών περιέλαβαν, εκτός από την προσεκτική εξέταση (close reading) των κειμένων των έργων (πρωτεύουσες πηγές) και τη μελέτη της σχετικής βιβλιογραφίας (δευτερεύουσες πηγές), τη συγκέντρωση και εξέταση αναφορών παραγωγής, εκθέσεων προόδου των εργαστηρίων των παραστάσεων, (ημι)δομημένων συνεντεύξεων, καθώς και τη διεξαγωγή επιτόπιας και διαδικτυακής αρχειακής έρευνας