[PAST EVENT] Theatre & Performance Brown Bag Series: Christina Baker

March 30, 2018
12pm - 1pm
Location
Phi Beta Kappa (PBK) Memorial Hall, Dodge Room
601 Jamestown Rd
Williamsburg, VA 23185Map this location
Access & Features
  • Open to the public
La Pretty Guoman

LA PRIETTY PRECARIOUS GUOMAN: MOURNING SPECTRAL (TRANS)FEMICIDES IN MEXICO

Presented by Christina Baker

C?sar Enr?quez, cabareterx par excellence, conjoins song, dance, and drama in his one-woman show, La Prietty Guoman. Over the span of 60 minutes, La Prietty tells a story steeped in Mexico?s racist rhetoric that has not only violated La Prietty?s psyche but also her body. Sold into slavery as a trans-woman, her body has been abused to the point of abstraction. She no longer exists within the living world, not only because the gruesome femicide that took her life, but the fact that she never existed according to her family, the news, and the State. To transmit this story, though, La Prietty relies on references to the 90s film, Pretty Woman, and pop stars from the United States. Imbued with humor and peppered with horrific tales, La Prietty Guoman pulls all the punches. To read this performance, I consider the ramifications of the 1990s neoliberal economic policy, NAFTA, and the increased commodification of the female body as seen via femicides and Mexico?s sex trade, in tandem with Judith Butler?s notion of precarious life. By putting on Mexico?s stages, from marginal ones to institutional ones, La Prietty raises awareness about the lives the State has sought to erase by giving names to the women lost and commemorating their existence.  

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Christina Baker is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Hispanic Studies at William & Mary. She earned her Ph.D. in Spanish from the University of Wisconsin?Madison in Contemporary Latin American Literature with a minor in Ethnomusicology and Theatre. Her research focuses on performance, theatre, queerness and music in contemporary Mexico.

Contact

Claire Payment, [[clpamment]]