Description
Book SynopsisThis study positions four musicals and their associated artists as mobilizers of defiant joy in relation to trauma and healing in Puerto Rico.
This book argues that the historical trajectory of these musicals has formed a canon of works that have reiterated, resisted or transformed experiences of trauma through linguistic, ritual, and geographic interventions. These traumas may be disaster-related, migrant-related, colonial or patriarchal. Bilingualism and translation, ritual action, and geographic space engage moments of trauma (natural disaster, incarceration, death) and healing (community celebration, grieving, emancipation) in these works. The musicals considered are West Side Story (1957, 2009, 2019), The Capeman (1998), In the Heights (2008), and Hamilton (2015). Central to this argument is that each of the musicals discussed is tied to Puerto Rico, either through the representation of Puerto Rican characters and stories, or through t
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1: Bilingualism and Translation as Caring Performance
Chapter 2: Caring Performance in Public Art
Chapter 3: Spaces of Care
Chapter 4: Transforming Disaster through Defiant Joy
Afterword
Index
