Spritual Insurgency: Narcoviolence and performance

• In Event: Crossing Politics and Identities in Latin American Performance Histories

Abstract

In “Spiritual Insurgency: Narcoviolence and Performance,” I compare several examples of performance pieces that sparked extensive dialogues between the artists and the general public regarding the role of performance in the critique of narcoviolence. Rossana Reguillo, a professor of Sociocultural Studies at ITESO in México, argues that it is through the making visible of and the critique of the horrors of the “narco-machine” that we can participate in an opposition to its all-consuming presence. That by generating concentrated discussion and media that offer resistance to harmful trends in popular culture and the State-sanctioned lies spawned by mainstream media, a collective dismantling of the “narco-machine” may be possible. I analyze questions such as: What aspects of live performance benefit or detract from the construction of the “counter-machine?” Is it possible to ascertain the impact of a particular piece in its aftermath? Are the media of performance and subsequent documentation successful in creating resistance to what Reguillo and other scholars have deemed the “narco-machine?”

Author

• Laura N Bluher, Independent / Hemispheric Institute of Performance & Politics