From Zoot Suits To Hip Hop: Black And Latino Performance

FROM ZOOT SUITS TO HIP HOP: BLACK AND LATINO PERFORMANCE
TD 357T, AFR 374F, MAS 374

Professor

Deborah Paredez, Assistant Professor in Performance as Public Practice

Course Description

In recent years, numerous public discussions and critical commentaries have focused on the purported tensions between Black and Latino communities. By examining Black and Latino artistic products and cultural practices from the 1940s to the present, the historical trajectory of this course encourages students to challenge recent constructions of Black/Latino relations as inherently conflictual. We will pay particular attention to both thematic resonances between Black and Latino art and to actual Black/Latino artistic collaborations in theatre, dance, performance art, performance poetry, music, fashion and style. We will also study works by Afro-Latino artists whose art disrupts the discrete categories that often separate the two communities. Throughout the course, students will 1) chart a history of collaborations and resonances between Black and Latino artists; 2) identify Black and Latino aesthetic styles and traditions; and 3) develop and practice performance analysis skills.

Sampling of Topics and Artists Studied

Zoot Suit style and culture, Bebop, John Coltrane, Black Arts Movement, Chicano Teatros, Bugalú, Salsa, Sylvester and disco culture, ntozake shange, Bill T. Jones, El Vez, Robbie McCauley, Carmelita Tropicana, Selena, Santana, Ozomatli, spoken word, Hip Hop history and culture, contemporary Black and Latino arts organizations

Course Assignments

Brief Weekly Reflection Papers
Creative Response
Performance Analysis
Essay Précis & Response
Final Group Presentations

In this current moment where popular media is frequently characterizing Latinos and African Americans as inevitably in conflict with one another or, at best, inherently discrete from one another, I wanted to create a class that encouraged students to see the long-standing and ongoing collaborations between and resonances among Black, Latina/o and Afro-Latino/a artists.
— Deborah Paredez

The class 'From Zoot Suits to Hip Hop' was an amazing experience! Dr. Paredez provided a space where her students were encouraged to explore and tackle the big question, 'What defines Black/Latino art?' One of my favorite experiences from the class was being able to study the late Tejano star Selena as a person who contributed to the Latino aesthetic. Dr. Paredez's enthusiasm made this class a very special one. She helped students feel comfortable to push their creative limits, allowing us to grow not only as students, but as individuals.
— Adriana Camacho, Psychology & Mexican American Studies undergraduate

The class challenged everyone, regardless of race, gender, and sexual orientation to think about identity and culture as something personal and not general. We studied individuals as a microcosmic means of understanding a collective cultural ethos, and every figure we encountered helped our own understanding of how we ourselves fit in within that ethos.
— Tony Meneses, English/Plan I Honors and Theatre & Dance undergraduate

Other courses taught by Deborah Paredez

TD 311: Languages of the Stage
TD 317D: 19th & 20th Century Western Theatre History
TD 317D: Gender, Race, and Performance, 1850s-Present
TD 317D: History of Popular Performance
TD 357T: Latina/o Performance and Popular Culture
TD 391: Proseminar in Performance as Public Practice
TD 387D: Staging the Racialized Body