Staging an important new conversation between performers and critics, Blacktino Queer Performance approaches the interrelations of blackness and Latinidad through a stimulating mix of theory and art. The collection contains nine performance scripts by established and emerging black and Latina/o queer playwrights and performance artists, each accompanied by an interview and critical essay conducted or written by leading scholars of black, Latina/o, and queer expressive practices. As the volume's framing device, "blacktino" grounds the specificities of black and brown social and political relations while allowing the contributors to maintain the goals of queer-of-color critique. Whether interrogating constructions of Latino masculinity, theorizing the black queer male experience, or examining black lesbian relationships, the contributors present blacktino queer performance as an artistic, critical, political, and collaborative practice. These scripts, interviews, and essays not only accentuate the value of blacktino as a reading device; they radiate the possibilities for thinking through the concepts of blacktino, queer, and performance across several disciplines. Blacktino Queer Performance reveals the inevitable flirtations, frictions, and seductions that mark the contours of any ethnoracial love affair.
Contributors. Jossiana Arroyo, Marlon M. Bailey, Pamela Booker, Sharon Bridgforth, Jennifer Devere Brody, Cedric Brown, Bernadette Marie Calafell, Javier Cardona, E. Patrick Johnson, Omi Osun Joni L. Jones, John Keene, Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes, D. Soyini Madison, Jeffrey Q. McCune Jr., Andreea Micu, Charles I. Nero, Tavia Nyong'o, Paul Outlaw, Coya Paz, Charles Rice-González, Sandra L. Richards, Matt Richardson, Ramón H. Rivera-Servera, Celiany Rivera-Velázquez, Tamara Roberts, Lisa B. Thompson, Beliza Torres Narváez, Patricia Ybarra, Vershawn Ashanti Young
E. Patrick Johnson is Carlos Montezuma Professor of Performance Studies and African American Studies at Northwestern University and the author of Appropriating Blackness: Performance and the Politics of Authenticity, also published by Duke University Press.
Ramón H. Rivera-Servera is Associate Professor of Performance Studies at Northwestern University and the author of Performing Queer Latinidad: Dance, Sexuality, Politics.
"[T]he Blacktino works as presented in this collection rankle and disturb, taunt and tantalize, ripping back skin and exposing raw nerves like no other." — Timothy Francis Barry, Brooklyn Rail
"A groundbreaking project...." — Claudia Sofía Garriga-López, TSQ
"It is not only that all these voices matter and deserve to be heard but also (and even more so) that, when these voices are heard together in the space of the same printed text, they mean more—and differently—than they would in the small theatre spaces where they were originally performed." — Shane Breaux, Theatre Survey
"In bringing together the performance scripts of primarily Black and Latina/o queer playwrights and performance artists working in the United States, the book offers a survey of some of the most arresting work in this rising field." — Guillermo Avilés-Rodríguez, Chiricú
“This collection is a call for more collections that empower, (re)member, and advocate for queer people of color. It is an excellent choice for artists, activists, and academics interested in the intersectionality of race, class, gender, and sexuality (and more); cultural performances of power and resistance; and the potentiality of queer of color worldmaking.” — Robert Gutierrez-Perez, Text and Performance Quarterly
“Blacktino Queer Performance is an essential read for scholars of performance, queer theory, and critical race studies. Its cross-disciplinary approach provides multiple perspectives through intertextual and intercultural critique.” — Sarah Stefana Smith, CAA Reviews
"Blacktino Queer Performance is brimming with funk and urgency. It gives readers fresh ways to teach, study, and enact the many ways racialized styles, accents, genders, and gestures move in the world and on the stage. As a critical category of inquiry, blacktino gets jiggy with categories of race, region, and ethnic identity, and the result is a train of critical ideas that will push readers out of their silos into new imaginative encounters." — Juana María Rodríguez, author of, Sexual Futures, Queer Gestures, and Other Latina Longings
"Blacktino Queer Performance arrives as an essential volume for all concerned with performance and its theory. Its pages bristle with smart and unexpected discoveries arranged with fresh expertise by E. Patrick Johnson and Ramón H. Rivera-Servera. Queer blacktino lives have found worthy theatrical representation in this collection." — Thomas F. DeFrantz, coeditor of, Black Performance Theory