ABSTRACT
By broadening the awareness of vanguard Latinx artists working in underground theatres and collectives, this chapter troubles the too-easy categorization of performance history and its artists along lines of ethnicity, race, nationality, and sexuality. With a focus on the avant-garde, the chapter recenters the history of artmaking in mid–20th-century New York through Latinx innovators. It covers the film performances and lesser-known theatrical careers of Warhol Superstars Mario Montez and Holly Woodlawn while resituating their camp and drag as a trans avant-garde practice. The discussion brings their work into the conversation with Dumé Spanish Theatre and Dúo Theatre, whose queer and transgressive productions drew inspiration from New York’s underground in their innovation of Theatre of the Absurd and Theatre of Cruelty. Working in a variety of media, the Latinx artists discussed here explored everyday life and its repetition as a way of interrogating the status quo, just as they relied on affective performances to create queer spaces and possibilities that were “otherwise” in relation to it.
