Performance, politics, and protest in Jesusa Rodríguez’s “El concilio de amor”
We are presenting texts published in “Artelogie” – Numéro double spécial 22 (2024): Violencia(s), frontera(s) y sentimiento(s): formas, sentidos y significados de la violencia en nuestra América. You can access all the issue here.
Author: Madeline Murphy Turner
Abstract:
Since the late 1970s, Mexican director, actress, and politician Jesusa Rodríguez has been a critical figure in the performance scene of Mexico and abroad. In 2011, New York University bought Rodríguez’s personal archive, the Jesusa Rodríguez Papers (JRP), which contains the documents for one of Rodríguez’s many theatrical performances: El concilio de amor (1987−88). The documents related to this work primarily characterize it as one of four artistic events that right-wing Catholic groups protested in 1988. This essay proposes a reading of El concilio de amor that expands our understanding of the work. It does so by arguing that an analysis of El concilio de amor that includes documents from the JRP shifts what it means to reconstruct a performance through documentation. Through archival materials, I contend that the JRP shows how the archive can expand a performance’s political scope by altering its interpretive framework.
