Download or read book Theatre of the Sphere written by Luis Valdez and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-07-27 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Theatre of the Sphere is Luis Valdez’s exploration of the principles that underlie his innovations as a playwright, teacher, and theatrical innovator. He discusses the unique aesthetic, more than five decades in the making, that defines the work of his group El Teatro Campesino—from shows staged on the backs of flatbed trucks by the participants in the Delano Grape Strike of the 1960s to international megahits like Zoot Suit. Opening with a history of El Teatro Campesino, rich with Valdez’s insights and remembrances, the book’s first part provides context for the development of the Theatre of the Sphere acting method. The second part delivers the conceptual framework for Valdez’s acting theory and practice, situating it in Mayan mathematics and metaphysics. The third part of the book applies this methodology to describe the "viente pasos," the 20-element exercise sequence that comprises the core practice of El Teatro Campesino—strengthening the body, balance, precision, and flexibility but also leadership, collaboration, observation, vulnerability, trust, and expression of passion; of consciousness of time, place, self, community, language, and belief; of honour, faith, morality, and commitment. The book concludes with the full text of Valdez’s poem, "El Buen Actor/El Mal Actor," and a comprehensive bibliography for further study. This is a vital and indispensable text for today’s actor, as well as scholars and students of contemporary theatre, American and Chicano performance, and the process of theatre-making, actor training, and community performance.
Download or read book The Theatre of Luis Valdez written by Michael M. Chemers and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-11-29 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Theatre of Luis Valdez focuses on the life and work of American playwright and director Luis Valdez, probably best known for his landmark 1979 play Zoot Suit – the first play by a Latinx playwright to appear on Broadway – and founder of El Teatro Campesino, the oldest surviving community theatre in the United States. Built around first-hand discussions of Valdez’s work, this collection gives an in-depth understanding of where ‘the godfather of Chicano theatre’ fits in the grand scheme of American drama and performance. Collaborators Edward James Olmos and Alma Martinez talk about working with Valdez and El Teatro Campesino; scholar Leticia Garcia interviews Jorge Huerta, the leading authority on Chicanx and Latinx theatre on the impact of Valdez work; and Luis Valdez himself contributes a lecture on all aspects of his craft from political resistance and the migrant experience to actor training and dramatic form. A concise and accessible study, 4x45 || Luis Valdez is the go-to resource for scholars, students and theatre practitioners looking for an introduction to this seminal figure in modern American performance.
Download or read book Luis Valdez Early Works Actos Bernab and Pensamiento Serpentino written by Luis Valdez and published by Arte Publico Press. This book was released on 1990-01-31 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection includes one-act plays by the famous farmwork theater, El Teatro Campesino, and its director Luis Valdez; one of the first fully realized, full-length plays by Valdez alone; and an original narrative poem by Luis Valdez.
Download or read book Zoot Suit Other Plays written by Luis Valdez and published by Arte Publico Press. This book was released on 1992-04-30 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This critically acclaimed play by Luis Valdez cracks open the depiction of Chicanos on stage, challenging viewers to revisit a troubled moment in our nationÕs history. From the moment the myth-infused character El Pachuco burst onto the stage, cutting his way through the drop curtain with a switchblade, Luis Valdez spurred a revolution in Chicano theater. Focusing on the events surrounding the Sleepy Lagoon Murder Trial of 1942 and the ensuing Zoot Suit Riots that turned Los Angeles into a bloody war zone, this is a gritty and vivid depiction of the horrifying violence and racism suffered by young Mexican Americans on the home front during World War II. ValdezÕs cadre of young urban characters struggle with the stereotypes and generalizations of AmericaÕs dominant culture, the questions of assimilation and patriotism, and a desire to rebel against the mainstream pressures that threaten to wipe them out. Experimenting with brash forms of narration, pop culture of the war era, and complex characterizations, this quintessential exploration of the Mexican-American experience in the United States during the 1940Õs was the first, and only, Chicano play to open on Broadway. This collection contains three of playwright and screenwriter Luis ValdezÕs most important and recognized plays: Zoot Suit, Bandido! and I DonÕt Have to Show You No Stinking Badges. The anthology also includes an introduction by noted theater critic Dr. Jorge Huerta of the University of California-San Diego. Luis Valdez, the most recognized and celebrated Hispanic playwright of our times, is the director of the famous farm-worker theater, El Teatro Campesino.
Download or read book Taking it to the Streets written by Harry Justin Elam and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 1997 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An original and valuable assessment of American political theater in the 1960s and 1970s
Download or read book Mummified Deer and Other Plays written by Luis Valdez and published by Arte Publico Press. This book was released on 2005-04-30 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For more than twenty years, Luis Valdez, the most distinguished Latino playwright and director, has reserved most of his scripts for live stage productions. His two landmark published collections, Early Works and Zoot Suit and Other Plays, are only a sampling of his early master works and of the later plays that made it to the stage in the 1980s. Now, Valdez has finally opened his trunk to release print editions of a revised early work and two brand new, major dramas. Mummified Deer is ValdezÍs mature exploration of the Yaqui Indian roots of Mexican American culture and ValdezÍs own family. Returning to the format of the tent show, Valdez mines maternal psychology and Yaqui mysticism to demand that characters scale the full gamut of emotions. In this gut-wrenching piece, Mama Chu is the dominant, imposing figure who must reconcile the present with the past and unify the conflicting histories and identities of her family. Mundo Mata is the long-awaited drama of unionizing farm workers battling the agribusiness power structure in California while Mexican Americans are being sent off to battle brown-skinned enemies in Vietnam. Valdez assesses the toll that families have to pay to remain united against divisive forces. It all comes down to Reymundo, the antihero, who in the end must weigh existential and political questions. The Shrunken Head of Pancho Villa, ValdezÍs re-worked first play, still holds all the vision, spunk, and innovation of the young playwright. Injecting black humor into domestic drama, disembodied heads talk, mothers exchange roles with the patriarch, pachucos banter, and sell-outs become the mouthpieces for an oppressed communityall characters and themes that would dominate future plays of Valdez and subsequent Chicano literature.
Download or read book El Teatro Campesino written by Yolanda Broyles-González and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This pioneering work demythologizes and reinterprets the company's history from its origins in California's farm labor struggles to its successes in Europe and on Broadway until the disbanding of the original collective ensemble in 1980 with the subsequent adoption of mainstream production practices.
Download or read book Luis Valdez written by Jorge a Huerta and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2024-07-23 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Luis Valdez studies the life and work of this Chicano playwright, director, performer, and producer along with the implications of his legacy for Chicana/o/x communities and for all who engage with his work. Valdez's work broadened the scope of theatre and arts in the Chicano community and his formation of El Teatro Campesino brought together students and farmworkers. This volume highlights his professional work and writings. It offers a unique investigation of Luis Valdez, his life, his oeuvre and his contributions to the theatre in the United States and beyond. This book combines: an in-depth biographical overview of Valdez's life and career, focusing on defining experiences that set his trajectory into motion; an exploration of Valdez's key writings - the 1973 epic poem Pensamiento Serpentino and the unpublished lecture The Power of Zero which articulate his philosophy of the Theatre of the Sphere; a stylistic analysis of his key works, including Soldado Razo and Zoot Suit as well as their critical reception; a selection of improvisation and dance-based warm-ups, embodiment exercises, and an acto writing practicum adapted to experiment with Valdez's works. As a first step towards critical understanding, and as an initial exploration before going on to further, primary research, Routledge Performance Practitioners offer unbeatable value for today's students.
Download or read book Necessary Theater written by Jorge A. Huerta and published by Arte Publico Press. This book was released on 1989-07-01 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Huerta, a leading exponent of contemporary Chicano theater, has assembled six short, representative plays that not only share the common theme of survival but also have received successful staging. The playsÍ stylistic variety, from the Brechtian Guadalupe and La victima through the realistically domestic Soldierboy to the modern morality play Money, combined with useful introductions both to the collection as a whole and to each of the scripts, enhances the anthologyÍs value. Readers should be informed that some scenes are bilingual and some written entirely in Spanish. Recommended especially for libraries serving Hispanic communities.
Download or read book Zoot Suit written by Luis Valdez and published by Arte Publico Press. This book was released on 2004-11-30 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A group of Mexican-Americans are sent to San Quentin unjustly for the death of a man at Sleepy Lagoon. Based on the actual case and zoot suit riots of 1940's Los Angeles.
Download or read book Pensamiento Serpentino written by Luis Valdez and published by . This book was released on 1973 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Chicano Drama written by Jorge A. Huerta and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2000-11-16 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An accessible introduction for students and theatregoers of Chicano theatre, first published in 2000.
Download or read book Actos written by Luis Valdez and published by . This book was released on 1971 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Mexican American Religions written by Gastón Espinosa and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2008-07-08 with total page 455 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection presents a rich, multidisciplinary inquiry into the role of religion in the Mexican American community. Breaking new ground by analyzing the influence of religion on Mexican American literature, art, activism, and popular culture, it makes the case for the establishment of Mexican American religious studies as a distinct, recognized field of scholarly inquiry. Scholars of religion, Latin American, and Chicano/a studies as well as of sociology, anthropology, and literary and performance studies, address several broad themes. Taking on questions of history and interpretation, they examine the origins of Mexican American religious studies and Mario Barrera’s theory of internal colonialism. In discussions of the utopian community founded by the preacher and activist Reies López Tijerina, César Chávez’s faith-based activism, and the Los Angeles-based Católicos Por La Raza movement of the late 1960s, other contributors focus on mystics and prophets. Still others illuminate popular Catholicism by looking at Our Lady of Guadalupe, home altars, and Los Pastores dramas (nativity plays) as vehicles for personal, social, and political empowerment. Turning to literature, contributors consider Gloria Anzaldúa’s view of the borderlands as a mystic vision and the ways that Chicana writers invoke religious symbols and rhetoric to articulate a moral vision highlighting social injustice. They investigate the role of healing, looking at it in relation to both the Latino Pentecostal movement and the practice of the curanderismo tradition in East Los Angeles. Delving into to popular culture, they reflect on Luis Valdez’s video drama La Pastorela: “The Shepherds’ Play,” the spirituality of Chicana art, and the religious overtones of the reverence for the slain Tejana music star Selena. This volume signals the vibrancy and diversity of the practices, arts, traditions, and spiritualities that reflect and inform Mexican American religion. Contributors: Rudy V. Busto, Davíd Carrasco, Socorro Castañeda-Liles, Gastón Espinosa, Richard R. Flores, Mario T. García, María Herrera-Sobek, Luís D. León, Ellen McCracken, Stephen R. Lloyd-Moffett, Laura E. Pérez, Roberto Lint Saragena, Anthony M. Stevens-Arroyo, Kay Turner
Download or read book Mexican American Theatre written by Nicolás Kanellos and published by . This book was released on 1983 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Past as Present in the Drama of August Wilson written by Harry J. Elam and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2009-05-21 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pulitzer-prizewinning playwright August Wilson, author of Fences, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, and The Piano Lesson, among other dramatic works, is one of the most well respected American playwrights on the contemporary stage. The founder of the Black Horizon Theater Company, his self-defined dramatic project is to review twentieth-century African American history by creating a play for each decade. Theater scholar and critic Harry J. Elam examines Wilson's published plays within the context of contemporary African American literature and in relation to concepts of memory and history, culture and resistance, race and representation. Elam finds that each of Wilson's plays recaptures narratives lost, ignored, or avoided to create a new experience of the past that questions the historical categories of race and the meanings of blackness. Harry J. Elam, Jr. is Professor of Drama at Stanford University and author of Taking It to the Streets: The Social Protest Theater of Luis Valdez and Amiri Baraka (The University of Michigan Press).
Download or read book Breaking It Down written by Nicole Hodges Persley and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2021-07-15 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Everyone involved in the performing arts, from professors to casting directors to actors to students, especially those just starting out, should read this eye-opening work." Library Journal, Starred Review A practical guide that shows BIPOC actors how to break down the audition process rather than being broken down by the entertainment industry and its practices of exclusion and bias. Working in an environment that often stereotypes or attempts to “universalize” experiences, it’s more important than ever that actors consider how culture, race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and ability are inseparable and important parts of their identity that should not be minimized and can instead enhance their work. In Breaking It Down: Audition Techniques for Actors of the Global Majority, Nicole Hodges Persley and Monica White Ndounoushare real-world audition strategies that centers the experiences of actors of color. They combine practical advice, cultural studies, Black feminist perspectives, and lived experiences to offer intersectional approaches to auditioning. The ten steps outlined in this book aid actors across racial lines seeking to develop the necessary skills to break down a character and script while affirming their full selves into the audition to book the role. Building on the momentum of the #BlackLivesMatter, #MeToo, and Time’s Up movements, Breaking It Down emboldens actors of the global majority to embrace every aspect of their identities rather than leaving themselves behind in an effort to gain entry and access to the entertainment industry
