nh923@nyu.edu

I was struck by the idea of contagion that Taylor introduces in “’You Are Here’: H.I.J.O.S and the DNA of Performance,” as it relates to both trauma and protest (166). In discussing memes, Taylor elaborates that “longevity alone cannot guarantee transmission,” there needs to be some kind of proliferation, they need to “catch on” (172). I found this idea of contagion particularly interesting in the way that it both implicates and involves the body, but also relies on some kind of existence outside of a singular body. A virus is not contagious if it does not have a way of moving from one vector (body) to another. The escraches of the H.I.J.O.S, which pick up people as it moves, acts similarly, quite literally catching them up in the action (162). Leaving aside the negative associations of viruses, especially in our world today, I think there is something quite relevant in the movement of the virus and the movement of performance: something that both remains consistent and also shifts and mutates.

I was also drawn, in both articles, to the way in which spaces are shaped and reshaped.  In references to the actions of H.I.J.O.S Taylor writes, “protesters proved an alternative map of Argentina’s sociohistorical space.” Through the movement of the escraches through the city, through the marking of locations with yellow paint, and the by reconfiguring location through marking proximity to those that participated in torture, a new orientation to space is generated.  What can and does seeing and moving through a space differently do? What kind of memory do spaces hold? Drawing on Roach and the vortices of behavior there is an argument to be made that certain spaces hold and reproduce certain and specific “needs, desires, and habits” (28). The escraches of the H.I.J.O.S, one might argue, work as a disruption, breaking the habit of reproduction, and instead create a new set of behaviors and movements, predicated less on secrecy and fear, and more on transparency and community.

Villa Grimaldi is interesting in considering not just the way that space holds memory and trauma but the way that space is held inside the body. As Taylor describes that first tour with Matta, it becomes clear that his movement through the grounds create a shift in his embodiment. “Gradually, his pronouns change, “Taylor writes, “’they tortured them’ becomes ‘they tortured us.’” (184). In this recounting, however, it also becomes clear that Matta is not walking the space that Taylor is walking, but rather a space that exists internally in his memory and body. Can, and if so, in what way, can altering the external structure of a traumatic space, restructure the internal space of trauma?

 

Roach, Joseph. “Introduction: History, Memory and Performance.” In Cities of the Dead: Circum-Atlantic Performance, 1-32. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996.

Taylor, Diana. “ ‘You Are Here:’ H.I.J.O.S and the DNA of Performance.” In The Archive and The Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas, 161-189. Durham: Duke University Press, 2003.

Taylor, Diana. “Tortuous Routes: Four Walks Through Villa Grimaldi.” In ¡Presente!: The Politics of Presence, 175-202. Durham: Duke University Press, 2020.