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SPRING 2009 169 A Bi-National Celebration of Contemporary Mexican Theatre November 12-15, 2008 – El Paso, Texas Timothy G. Compton Under the auspices of the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), approximately 100 scholars and creators of Mexican theatre gathered in a unique celebration which did indeed take place on both sides of the border, despite the difficulties of crossing that border and the ongoing drama of drug-related violence in Ciudad Juárez. Not a single participant, I am happy to report, was killed, shot at, kidnapped, or threatened in any way. The biggest problem was sleep deprivation (and it was common!), with readings of scholarly papers starting daily at 8:30 AM and continuing through early afternoons, staged readings in the later afternoons, then bus rides across the border to see evening plays in Cd. Juárez, and finally returning to El Paso as late as 12:30 AM. One day there was a much appreciated short break. The author, producer, director, and choreographer of the Celebration, Kirsten Nigro, brilliantly tapped into the fact that Mexico’s XXIX Muestra nacional de teatro was scheduled to take place in Cd. Juárez in November. Come together it did, thanks to numerous UTEP sponsors, the Consulado General de México in El Paso (which hosted a reception for celebration participants at their facility), the Instituto Chihuahuense de la Cultura, and the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes. Thus, even sponsorship came from both sides of the border. Approximately 60 ponencias were delivered in concurrent sessions. Editors of UTEP’s Revista de literatura mexicana announced that an upcoming number of the journal would be dedicated entirely to expanded versions of the celebration’s presentations. The Celebration also included three homenajes. The first honored Víctor Hugo Rascón Banda, and included presentations from Enrique Mijares, Rocío Galicia,Armando Partida, Jackie 170 LATIN AMERICAN THEATRE REVIEW Bixler, Stuart Day and Kirsten Nigro. Galicia delivered a brilliant overview of the extensive corpus of theatre Rascón Banda penned, showing how it represented the complexity of Mexican society, and especially its ills. The other presentations focused less on the late great playwright’s theatre; instead they ranged from a look at his public life (Partida) to very personal looks at his humanity as an individual, his relationship with family members, his hometown of Uruachic, his battle with cancer, and his relationship with the presenters themselves. The next homage was to Emilio Carballido and included four presentations, each focusing on different plays as keys to this late great playwright’s theatre. Beatriz Rizk spoke on his short plays on Mexico City (DF), which combine to create a sort of mural, Jackie Bixler put forth Fotografía en la playa as a very personal play based on Carballido’s own family, Socorro Merlín analyzed the text of Zorros chinos and its premiere directed by Carlos Corona, and Héctor Herrera discussed Un gran ramo de rosas, which Carballido dictated to Herrera, and which premiered in Xalapa in August. The final homage included tributes from colleagues and family members honoring the life of Dr. María Isela Chiu Olivares, a native of the El Paso area, graduate of UTEP, professor at Utah State University, and scholar of Mexican literature. A playwright roundtable generated considerable and sometimes heated discussion on the topics of funding for artistic work, how awards are granted (words such as “amiguismo,” “nepotismo” and “canibalismo” surfaced), and the differences and tensions between Mexico City and the rest of the Republic, both in terms of funding and in the critical attention paid to theatre in those spheres. The roundtable included the following playwrights: Raquel Araujo from Mérida, Felipe Galván from Mexico City and Puebla, Mesa de dramaturgos: (L to R) Carmina Narro, Kirsten Nigro (moderator), Felipe Galván. Photo: Timothy G. Compton. SPRING 2009 171 Socorro Loeza from Yucatán, Manolo Medina from Monterrey, Carmina Narro from Mexico City, Ricardo Pérez Quitt from Atlixco, Hugo Salcedo from Tijuana, and Manuel Talavera from Chihuahua. A session on recent publications in Mexican theatre included presentations from Gastón Alzate and Paola Marín on the online magazine Karpa, Rocío Galicia on...

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