Transcultural Dramaturgies: Latina Theatre’s Third Wave

<p dir="ltr">[para. 1]: "In an effort to resist the potentially homogenizing effects of the term <i>"Latina,"</i> which often elides the diversity of ethnicities that comprise this contested demonym, this essay undertakes a hemispheric perspective in its analysis of the points of contact and schisms that characterize the work of some of the most prominent voices in a new generation of Latina theatre. The essay telescopes its analysis on a cluster of "third wave" Latina playwrights who have risen to prominence in the past decade and whose work registers in distinct ways the impacts of transnational migrations on the formation of a sense of identity and place. In its analysis of representative plays by U.S. playwrights Caridad Svich and Tanya Saracho and Canadian playwright Carmen Aguirre, the essay offers an examination of the transcultural dramaturgies that emerge as a means of capturing cultural collisions and the lived experiences of existing in between and across the shifting borders of race, class, gender, and nation. This investigation also charts these playwrights' uneasy navigations between cultures as they attempt to both upend and work within the dominant culture's aesthetic conventions and means of production."</p>