Plays and Performances Featured in Holy Terrors

La conquista según la malinche: Jesusa Rodruiguez has used the historical figure of La Malinche, Hernan Cortes' translator and mother of his child, to tell many current tales of corruption and political intrigue. She updates each version to address the scandals of the moment--in this version the machinations of then President of Mexico, Salinas de Gotari. She uses the verb "decir" in all its forms to convey the way Mexicans use it to tell an entire story. Click here for entire transcript in Spanish. For the text in English, see the book, Holy Terrors.

Sor Juana en Almoloya (2000): Jesusa Rodruiguez has used the historical figure of La Malinche, Hernan Cortes' translator and mother of his child, to tell many current tales of corruption and political intrigue. She updates each version to address the scandals of the moment--in this version the machinations of then President of Mexico, Salinas de Gotari. She uses the verb "decir" in all its forms to convey the way Mexicans use it to tell an entire story. Click here for entire transcript in Spanish. For the text in English, see the book, Holy Terrors. View the video

Horas de Belén (2000): Las Horas de Belén. A Book of Hours (1999), an across-the-border collaborative performance piece, focuses on the violence against women in colonial Mexico, especially the incarceration of women in Belen, a charitable ‘home’/prison founded in 1683 for unwed mothers and other socially marginalized women. The collaboration took shape over a period of two years. The collaborators include Ruth Malechech, director of New York-based Mabou Mines, Jesusa Rodríguez, Mexican director, actor, writer, and feminist activist, and her partner, Argentine-born singer-composer Liliana Felipe, visual artist Julie Archer, and poet Catherine Sasanov who, at the time, was writing poems inspired by the history of Mexico City and the circumstances of the founding of Belén. Sasanov´s poetry became the base of the script (consisting of song lyrics, projected writings, and minimal dialogue). Debuting in the 1999 Festival del Centro Histórico in March at the Claustro of Sor Juana in Mexico City, it then opened at P.S. 122 in New York City in May, 1999, and has since played in various U.S. cities and returned to Mexico. While working on the piece, the women were deeply affected by reports of unsolved rapes and murders of hundreds of young women working in the maquila factories in U.S.-Mexico border towns. Official indifference to the this violence echoed the stories the artists were uncovering about the women in Belén.
Photo credits for Horas de Belen, Julie Archer

La soldadera autógena: Using the figure of the Soldadera, the woman warrior made famous during the Mexican Revolution, Jesusa Rodriguez proclaims her manifesto for a sexual and genetic revolution. No need any longer to divide humanity into him and her. Now, we can be him and her in one body, "dos presentaciones en un mismo envase." Read the transcript

Sor Juana, el primero sueño (2002): Primero Sueño was performed by Jesusa Rodríguez as a part of the 6th Encuentro of the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics, celebrated in June of 2007 in Buenos Aires, Argentina under the title CORPOLÍTICAS en las Ámericas / Body Politics in the Americas: Formations of Race, Class and Gender. Rodríguez performs a fragment of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz's 17th century poem, Primero Sueño, which the poet confesses was the only poem she ever wrote for pleasure and for herself. As she strips away the levels of the poem, she also strips away her clothes. View the video

Arquetipas (2004): In this bilingual 'pre-Hispanic' cabaret performance, Jesusa Rodríguez and Liliana Felipe perform some of their staple characters and songs, in a satiric commentary on how US foreign policy, neoliberalism, and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) are affecting Latin America. 'Freaka Kahlo,' 'la Serpiente Enchilada' and the 'Coatlicue' are some of the queer 'arquetypical' characters performed by Rodríguez; through ingenious neologisms and humorous wordplay, they pose a critique to consumer society, repressive US policies against illegal migrants, the imposition of transgenic corn in Mexico (which is currently endangering the ecodiversity of native corn), and the opening of an American megastore (the controversial Walmart) nearby the pre-Columbian pyramids of Teotihuacán.Renown songs by Felipe - 'Tienes que decidir,' 'Mala,' 'El maíz,' among others - provide a powerful antiphonal commentary on these issues, bringing together the social and the personal in a engaging take on queer politics. The artists close the performance with their famous song 'Popocateptl,' a parodic version of Mexican composer José Pablo Moncayo's most well-known work, 'Huapango.'  View the video

Other Plays and Materials

Donna Giovanni (1987): 'Donna Giovanni', Jesusa Rodríguez's adaptation for the theater of Mozart and Da Ponte's opera 'Don Giovanni', is a renowned feminist rendition of the classic by Mexican theater company Divas A.C. Directed by Rodríguez and with musical direction by Alberto Cruzprieto, the play successfully toured Latin America, the United States and Europe, receiving much critical acclaim. 'Donna Giovanni' masterfully utilizes humor, overlapping layers of cross-dressing, and the interplay between music, wordplay and tableaux vivants in order to pose a feminist commentary on sensuality, gender issues, and religious and cultural scenarios of love, deceit, empowerment and desire. View the video

Cielo de abajo (1992)

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Click here to view videos in the Hemispheric Institute Digital Video Library (HIDVL - open to the public)
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