ABSTRACT

The introduction begins with an analysis of Lourdes Casal’s famous poem, “For Anna Veldford,” which informs the title of this book and offers an entry point to processes of identity formation discussed throughout. Along with a presentation of its structure and the timeframe of the study—the 1980s and 1990s—it analyzes some keywords that will be used throughout: theater and performance (versus drama), ensemble (versus repertoire and assemblage), US Cuban (versus Cuban-American), audience (both real and implied), music (as performance and embodiment of sociohistorical reality), theory in the flesh, identity-in-difference in performance, hybridity, and metarepresentation.