ABSTRACT
Latinx Studies scholars have theorized performance in two main ways: the study of the theatre, dance, music, spoken word, and performance arts as well as rituals and festivities; and, the study of the performance of intersectional identities. Latina theatre and performance artists across the nation brought a Latina feminist, lesbian, and Third World women’s struggle worldview to the shaping of activist art that sought to critique and resist restrictive straight, Anglo, and Latinx cultural mores. Performance as a decolonial act becomes the central theoretical thread for Latinx Studies scholars seeking to identify intercultural and transactional identities and experiences. In Latinx Studies scholarship, performance is at once that which is created by Latinxs to be presented in front of audiences and at the same time a conceptual term used to identify how Latinx creators disrupt and resist normative conventions of existing.
