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theses

This dissertation explores how the theme of rural to urban migration in Peruvian theatre and performance from the 1950s until the beginning of the twenty-first century constitutes a response to Western discourses on development and modernity. Framing my arguments with decolonial and postcolonial theory from Arturo Escobar, Aníbal Quijano, and Walter Mignolo in conjunction with recent works of Peruvian cultural studies and performance criticism by Diana Taylor, Victor Vich, and Paul Connerton, I posit performance and theatre as powerful tools for contesting the colonial aspects of modernity, development, and globalization. This dissertation reveals that the desire to develop is a set of symbols, attitudes, and actions that forms an imaginary of development which sometimes overpowers traditional ties to place and culture. I argue that Peru’s theatre from this time period provides alternative interpretations of what it means to progress economically and socially within the metropolis and beyond amongst the country’s traditionally disenfranchised indigenous ethnic groups. This dissertation also examines how Peru’s theatre deconstructed development concerns from the latter half of the twentieth century by measuring both the transformation of Lima’s metropolitan theatre scene and the growth of theatre and festival in the provinces. By analyzing works by Sebastián Salazar Bondy, Julio Ramón Ribeyro, Hernán Cortés, César Vega Herrera, Grupo Cultural Yuyachkani, Gervasio Juan Vilca, Javier Maraví Aranda, and Julio Ortega, along with two festivals from the city of Cusco, this dissertation interrogates how Peru’s theatre protested racial discrimination and helped to craft regional and provincial identities as a response to the increasing encroachment of “developed,” globalized ways of life in the rural Andean countryside. I sustain that many of the plays and the festivals of Inti Raymi and the III Festival de Teatro Cusqueño, contrast the indigenous Andean lifestyle of the provinces to that of Lima in order to draw attention to how migration and globalization have caused the disappearance of youth, communal tradition, and capital from the provinces. In short, this dissertation demonstrates how theatre and performance portray popular sentiments toward Peru’s economic development by using migration as a connecting theme.

ETD_4506

Ph.D.

Includes bibliographical references

Includes vita

by mary Barnard

http://hdl.rutgers.edu/1782.1/rucore10001600001.ETD.000067341

doi:10.7282/T318358Z

ETD doctoral

The author owns the copyright to this work.