2020

Xiomara Cornejo

  • Doctoral Candidate
  • University of Missouri
Picture of Xiomara Cornejo

Project

The Performance and Puppet of Saint Oscar Romero in Post-Revolution Nicaragua: Transnational Solidarity between Bread and Puppet Theater and the Farm Worker's Theater Movement (MECATE)

Program

Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion Fellowships

Department

Theatre and Performance Studies

Abstract

This study investigates an arts exchange between US-based protest theatre group Bread and Puppet Theater and the Farmworkers Artistic & Theater Movement (MECATE) of Nicaragua. This project examines the overlooked Latin American influence on Bread and Puppet through an analysis of the 1985 performance of “The Nativity, Crucifixion, and Resurrection of Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador” in Nicaragua. This study relies upon firsthand accounts, oral histories, artifacts from Bread and Puppet archives, and published sources. It utilizes a hybrid methodological approach, fusing feminist ethnography and historiography to understand the geopolitical context and performance praxis that inspired this alliance. This project contributes to the limited knowledge of protest theatre history within the Americas with a hemispheric perspective of political puppetry and transnational radical theatre practice as a future model.