Commemorations and Protest in the Zocalo: A History of Performance in Mexico's Central Square from the Colonial Era to the Present
Item
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Title
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Commemorations and Protest in the Zocalo: A History of Performance in Mexico's Central Square from the Colonial Era to the Present
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Identifier
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d_2009_2013:2f6c3b74a354:11665
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identifier
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12218
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Creator
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Martinez, Ana,
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Contributor
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Jean Graham-Jones
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Date
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2013
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Theater history | Latin American history | Indigenous | Latin America | Mexico | Mexico City | Square | Zócalo
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Abstract
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The Zocalo, Mexico City's main square and the largest in Latin America, has been the material, symbolic, and official center of the country since the foundation of Tenochtitlan in 1325. It also continues to be Mexico's predominant public site of performance. More than that, the Zocalo is an architectural palimpsest: the material remains of past buildings are visible in its built environment. Throughout history, official performances in the Zocalo have theatricalized and legitimized governments and their domination over territory. Inversely, social and indigenous groups have used the Zocalo to stage performances contesting the official ideology. The dual purpose of this dissertation is to examine the Zocalo as Mexico's central site of performance and to unmask the official discourse regarding Mexico's natives.;Using an interdisciplinary approach, I study the Zocalo as a site of performance through five theatrical events in different historical periods, from the early colonial era to the present: the 1539 Civic Festival of Mexico-Tenochtitlan, the 1721 Bicentennial Parade of the Royal Banner, the 1910 Great Civic Procession and Great Historical Parade, the 2001 Zapatista entry into Mexico City, and the 2010 Bicentennial of Independence and Revolution. I show how, in order to reassert power, rulers have invented traditions and recycled old rituals in their staging of official celebrations. I foreground the role of the indigenous populations in these performances: as subjects with agency, as exploited objects, and as exotic characters.;I start with the premise that the Zocalo is a socially produced location and not a neutral space where things occur. My argument rests on the notion that each of the performances I analyze reframes the Zocalo into a specific space with different meanings and symbolisms. Through my case studies, I demonstrate the following transformations of the square: it was redefined as also indigenous after the conquest, it was an unstable space during the reign of the Bourbons, it became Mexico's national site of performance with the celebrations of independence, it was converted by the Zapatistas into a locus of indigenous struggle, and it was used as a folkloric and monumental place of nationhood in 2010. This project conveys the square's potential as a site of repression, rebellion, and liberation.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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2009_2013.csv
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Theatre
