Embodying the City through the Arts, Community Engagement, and Political Mobilization

Abstract

How do the arts and social mobilization transform public spaces? What role have metaphors played in collective action and the reconfigurations of the political? What are the means through which Puerto Rican art contributes in generating meaning for social experience, in contesting inequalities, and in the production of counter-hegemonic imaginaries and alternatives? This chapter examines the active participation of Agua, Sol y Sereno (ASYS), a collective theater group founded in 1993, in the vindication of the city as a vital space for the production of community ties, collective imaginaries, and social movements. It sustains that ASYS’s artistic practice embodies the city and infuses it with political and aesthetic density. The chapter analyzes the most emblematic theater piece of ASYS, Una de cal y una de arena, which critically addresses Puerto Rico’s development strategies, and its social and ecological consequences. It also addresses ASYS’s community residences and their pedagogies of the imagination. Finally, the chapter examines ASYS’s performing presence in massive cultural and political events, including the Fiestas de la Calle San Sebastián, and political demonstrations for social justice, human rights, and decolonization.