Sonic Strategies

Sonic Strategies for Performing the Modern Nation highlights what author Christina Baker refers to as the “sonic strategies” employed by contemporary performance artists in Mexico in response to the violence surrounding the government’s so-called War on Drugs. The introduction (which opens with the scene of the 2007 reenactment of the Grito, or “cry,” of independence) presents the theme, and each subsequent chapter focuses on the works of one or more performance artist. Taken together, the case studies illuminate how critiques of the nation’s rising death tolls, governmental corruption, and gendered violence very literally sound whether in MÚsica de balas, a post-dramatic piece by Hugo Salcedo, CompaÑÍa Teatro Penitenciario’s journey to theatre by way of incarceration, the lamentations of the nation’s Antigones, satirical revisions of Mexican Golden Age Film in the cabaret piece Nosotras las proles, or the story of transfemicide in CÉsar EnrÍquez's La Prietty Guoman by way of U.S. pop music.

Written in an accessible style grounded in theatre studies, but interdisciplinary by design, Sonic Strategies for Performing the Modern Nation will appeal to literary critics, students, (ethno)musicologists, and theater and performance scholars alike. ?By paying close attention to both planned and spontaneous sounds within live and textual experiences, Sonic Strategies for Performing the Modern Nation contends that conscientious listening practices highlight dynamic practices that reside beyond the linguistic and embodied gesture.