Review: Performance in the Zócalo: Constructing History, Race, and Identity in Mexico’s Central Square from the Colonial Era to the Present, by Ana Martínez

Abstract

In Performance in the Zócalo, Ana Martínez focuses on Mexico City’s main square, tracing its function as a performance space from the era of Tenochtitlán to the present and analyzing its role as a forum for working out conceptions of Mexican national identity. The author calls the study “an archaeological narrative because it is through material and spatial traces that I recover the performances I analyze” (5). The study’s focus on festive performance and creation of national identity situates it within a group of recently published or forthcoming books with diverse approaches, such as B. Christine Arce’s México’s Nobodies (2017), Manuel Cuellar’s Choreographing Mexico (forthcoming), Mauricio Tenorio-Trillo’s Mexico at the World’s Fairs (2018), and Miguel A. Valerio’s Sovereign Joy (forthcoming).Each chapter focuses on a particular performance that took place in the Zócalo’s history: (1) the 1539 festival commemorating Charles V’s Truce of Nice, which Martínez interprets as redefining the Aztec city of Tenochtitlán as a European colony; (2) the Paseo del Pendón of 1721, used to reaffirm monarchical authority in New Spain; (3) the 1910 centennial festival, celebrating Mexican independence and the liberal model, with its Gran procesión cívica and Gran desfile histórico; (4) the reinscription of physical space with the Zapatista rally of 2001; and (5) the monumentalization of the nation and its history with the 2010 Bicentenario celebrations.Of particular note is the way the author’s training in architecture and scenography permit a nuanced spatial and material analysis of the Zócalo at various moments in Mexican history, which contributes to an interpretation of the performances as they relate to national history. For example, Martínez draws on maps, drawings, and descriptive texts to show how the Zócalo’s “built environment manifested the European ideology of a Spanish medieval town” while simultaneously conserving links to its “preconquest character through the use of stones and materials unique to this geographical area” (27). The analysis that follows draws on the tension between the European and Indigenous elements of the scenography to argue that indigenous performances in the sixteenth-century celebration “appropriated and transformed the identity of the Spanish colonial center” (30).Another important contribution of the study is its insistence on the way that performance intervenes in the built environment, changing the way it is conceived of as a social, political, and economic space, particular with regard to indigenous interventions in the national square. From carnivalesque performances by indigenous actors mocking colonial officials to the romanticization of mestizaje and its consequent erasure of contemporary indigeneity, to the Zapatista march on the capital, the events of Performance in the Zócalo all point to the plaza as a contested site of power.Finally, a third contribution the author does not necessarily make explicit but that, nevertheless, adds immense value to the book is the remarkable skill and care with which Martínez narrates the historical context and events that are pertinent to each examined performance. Given that this study will be read by practitioners of performance studies with research interests outside of Mexico or even Latin America, the clarity of the writing and authority with which Martínez provides relevant background information is especially essential to the study’s success. Always grounded in eyewitness testimonies, the descriptions of the performances themselves are also meticulously described in an easy, narrative style. The straightforward socio-historical introductions that introduce each performance analysis make this book suitable for scholars in areas such as theater studies, architecture, and history, though the introductory material in each chapter may be familiar to Mexicanists.Performance in the Zócalo is an interdisciplinary, well-researched study, combining a telescopic view of history with a microscopic view of space. By focusing on one site over a span of six hundred years, the snapshot performances allow for a deep understanding of the construction of Mexican national identity from the colonial era to the present, the invention of the “Indian” and subsequent subjugation of the indigenous peoples, and the way that performance redefines built environments to create new interpretations of historical processes. The study provides a useful model for analyzing the countless other performances that continue to occupy and affect the space of the Zócalo.