The Archive and the Repertoire. Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas (review)

Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies 251 illustrate the heterogeneity of sociocultural experiences interwoven through a collective mood that places Latinos at crucial historical moments in the sociopolitical history of California. This linguistic and literary edifice, reconstructed through memory and resistance, highlights the rich cultural legacy of the Latino community in California. Although the diverse topics chosen in these sections seem dispersed, the selection of intergenerational voices of Chicanas/os and Latinas/os recreates an interdialogical range of narratives that brings to the forefront issues of race, ethnicity and gender, and their effects on the formation of subjectivity, both in the private and public realm. In summary, this anthology will be of particular value to students who are taking an introductory course of U.S. Latino literature. It is also a commendable aspiration , particularly because the vast selection of narratives represents the efforts of Latinas/ os who continue to recover their diverse literary heritage, as they articulate through their literary discourses, their presence in the dominant literary canon. Anthony Ñuño California State University, Bakersfield The Archive and the Repertoire. Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas Duke University Press, 2003 By Diana Taylor Diana Taylor's prize-winning Disappearing Acts: Spectacle and Gender in Argentina dealt with the gendered politics of performance in Argentina during and following the decade of the Dirty War—this book's chapter on the Madres de Plaza de Mayo has become a point of reference for anyone interested in political "performances." Taylor's newest book approaches the political and epistemological relevance of public performance by examining a wide diversity of media phenomena, grass-roots protests and art-house spectacles across the Americas. Addressing both widely popular "performances " (the eerily campy Larin psychic Walter Mercado or the ways in which minorities mourned the death of Princess Diana) and performative repertoires intended for more limited and self-selected audiences (such as recent performances by border artist Guillermo Gómez Peña or New York-based Brazilian artist Denise Stoldos), The Archive and the Repertoire examines the socio-political, historical and philosophical implications of performed vs. archival "acts of transfer," where what is transferred is some form of meaning. Broadly, then, the author's goal is to reflect on "the many ways in which the archive and the repertoire work to constitute and transmit social knowledge" (33). More nuanced than many recent books on performance theory, The Archive and the Repertoire avoids facile binary oppositions between the embodied practices of the repertoire and the disembodied (largely text-based) legacy of the archive. Taylor makes it clear that all transmitted knowledge is mediated in multiple ways, but notes that the forms which this mediation takes differ widely from one medium to the other. Reflecting on the analytical tools necessary to examine multivalent performances as "non-archival system[s] of transfer," the book's first chapter notes both the interdisciplinariry and the epistemological flexibility required to negotiate the ideological significance of any performance. After convincingly outlining a flexible and composite theoretical framework by bringing together key concepts from Bakhtin , Pierre Nora, de Certeau and Derrida, Taylor proceeds to demonstrate the degree to which learning to "read" the repertoire makes one more culturally functional in today's mediacrazed world. As it makes us more aware of the different rules and framework that control the different "systems of transfer" belonging to the archive or the repertoire, performance studies can provide us with new tools for examining the constitution, continuity and rupture of cultural traditions: [b]y considering scenarios as well as narratives, we expand our ability to rigorously analyze the live and the 252 Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies scripted, the citational practices that characterize both, how traditions get constituted and contested, the various trajectories and influences that might appear in one but not the other. (32-33) Whether or not one is interested in the individual performances she discusses in individual chapters (I found some chapters much more engaging than others), Taylor's reflections on the broader need ro consider rhe issues raised by performance theory are a must for anyone interested in cultural criticism. Her claim rhat the embodied repertoire can provide us with alternative ways of viewing history...