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  3. Performance in the Zócalo: Constructing History, Race, and Identity in Mexico's Central Square from the Colonial Era to the Present

Performance in the Zócalo: Constructing History, Race, and Identity in Mexico's Central Square from the Colonial Era to the Present

Ana Martínez
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For more than five centuries, the Plaza Mayor (or Zócalo) in Mexico City has been the site of performances for a public spectatorship. During the period of colonial rule, performances designed to ensure loyalty to the Spanish monarchy were staged there, but over time, these displays gave way to staged demonstrations of resistance. Today, the Zócalo is a site for both official government-sponsored celebrations and performances that challenge the state. Performance in the Zócalo examines the ways that this city square has achieved symbolic significance over the centuries, and how national, ethnic, and racial identity has been performed there.
 
A saying in Mexico City is "quien domina el centro, domina el país" (whoever dominates the center, dominates the country) as the Zócalo continues to act as the performative embodiment of Mexican society. This book highlights how particular performances build upon each other by recycling past architectures and performative practices for new purposes. Ana Martínez discusses the singular role of collective memory in creating meaning through space and landmarks, providing a new perspective and further insight into the problem of Mexico's relationship with its own past. Rather than merely describe the commemorations, she traces the relationship between space and the invention of a Mexican imaginary. She also explores how indigenous communities, Mexico's alienated subalterns, performed as exploited objects, exotic characters, and subjects with agency. The book's dual purposes are to examine the Zócalo as Mexico's central site of performance and to unmask, without homogenizing, the official discourse regarding Mexico's natives. This book will be of interest for students and scholars in theater studies, Mexican Studies, Cultural Geography, Latinx and Latin American Studies.
  • Cover
  • Title Page
  • Copyright Page
  • Dedication
  • Contents
  • Acknowledgments
  • Introduction
  • Chapter 1. Rebuilding and Redefining Mexico-Tenochtitlán
  • Chapter 2. Performing Loyalty in the Center
  • Chapter 3. Performing Social and Historical Evolution in the Center
  • Chapter 4. The Zócalo as a Counterspace
  • Chapter 5. Performing Mexico Today
  • Conclusion
  • Notes
  • Bibliography
  • Index
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Published: 2020
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN(s)
  • 978-0-472-12706-1 (ebook)
  • 978-0-472-13209-6 (hardcover)
Subject
  • Latinx Studies
  • Theater and Performance
  • Latin American Studies

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The Templo Mayor is made of gray, somewhat crumbled stone walls, one of which holds rows of carved skulls. The ornate cathedral stands in the background.

View of the cathedral and the Zócalo from the ruins of the Templo Mayor

From Introduction

Fig. 1. View of the cathedral and the Zócalo from the ruins of the Templo Mayor. (Photograph by the author.)

Bird’s-eye view of the Zócalo with protesters at night. Some protesters surround the phrase “Fue el Estado,” painted in enormous letters on the square’s floor.

Fue el Estado

From Introduction

Fig. 2. Fue el Estado [It was the state] demonstration. (Photograph courtesy of Eduardo Velasco Vásquez and Rexiste.)

Landscape map painted in colors.

Uppsala Map of Mexico-Tenochtitlán ca. 1550

From Chapter One

Fig. 3. The Map of Mexico-Tenochtitlán, circa 1550. (A color version of this image is available online. Courtesy of Uppsala University Library.)

Urban and architectural plan of Mexico’s square.

Plaza Mayor, 1562–1566

From Chapter One

Fig. 4. The Plan of the Plaza Mayor, 1562–66. (Courtesy of University of Arizona Special Collections.)

Urban plan in color.

Mexico City, S. XVI

From Chapter One

Fig. 5. Sixteenth-century Mexico City, plan reconstructed by Antonio García Cubas, 1929. The borders of the Spanish town or traza are darker (red). (A color version of this image is available online. Courtesy of the Archivo Histórico de la Ciudad de México, AHCDMX.)

Landscape map painted in colors with captions in Latin.

Tenochtitlán plan attributed to Hernán Cortés

From Chapter One

Fig. 6. Tenochtitlán. Plan attributed to Hernán Cortés, Praeclara Ferdinandi Cortesii de Noua maris Oceani Hyspania narrativo . . . (Nuremberg: Friedrich Peypus, 1524). (Image courtesy of Newberry Library, Chicago.)

Color painting. Large groups of people are engaged in different activities in the markets and in the outdoor spaces. A procession is located at the painting’s foreground.

Plaza Mayor de la Ciudad de Mexico, ca. 1766

From Chapter Two

Fig. 8. Plaza Mayor de la Ciudad de México, by an unknown artist, circa 1766. Oil on canvas. Museo Nacional de Historia, Ciudad de México. (A color version of this image is available online. Courtesy of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia.)

Color painting of a view in perspective of the plaza at night. Groups of denizens are depicted, engaging in various everyday life activities.

View of the Plaza Mayor, Mexico City, c. 1695

From Chapter Two

Fig. 9. La Plaza Mayor de México, by Cristóbal de Villalpando, circa 1695. Oil on canvas. Corsham Court Collection, Wiltshire. (A color version of this image is available online. Courtesy of Bridgeman Images.)

Caballeros tigres, wearing jaguar body suits and carrying decorated shields.

Desfile histórico. Caballeros Tigres.

From Chapter Three

Fig. 10. Procession of the caballeros tigres (tiger lords), Gran desfile histórico, 1910. (Courtesy of the Benson Latin American Collection, University of Texas at Austin.)

Actor playing Moctezuma and wearing a crown is seated on an ornate portable throne being carried by men in period costume. Onlookers of all ages line the parade route.

Desfile histórico. El Emperador Moctezuma.

From Chapter Three

Fig. 11. El Emperador Moctezuma, Gran desfile histórico, 1910. (Courtesy Benson Latin American Collection, University of Texas at Austin.)

Marcos, wearing a full face mask, addresses Mexicans in a completely packed Zócalo. He is on the east side of the square on an elevated platform, speaking into a microphone.

Subcomandante Marcos, May 1, 2006, Zócalo.

From Chapter Four

Fig. 12. Mexican Zapatista rebel leader Subcomandante Marcos speaks during a rally in Mexico City, May 1, 2006—International Worker’s Day. (A color version of this image is available online. Photo by David Cilia, courtesy of Reuters Pictures.)

Nighttime revelers, some with cellphone cameras, watch as a giant silver inflatable puppet passes in front of the Palacio Nacional.

Quetzalcóatl float in Mexico City's Zócalo plaza, Sept. 15, 2010

From Chapter Five

Fig. 13. A float symbolizing the Quetzalcóatl, or the Plumed Serpent, passes in front of the Palacio Nacional during the Bicentenario in the Zócalo in Mexico City, September 2010. (Courtesy of AP Photo, Alexandre Meneghini.)

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