Ramón Rivera-Servera

Department of Performance Studies

Ramón H. Rivera-Servera's research focuses on contemporary performance in the United States with special emphasis on the ways categories of race, gender and sexuality are negotiated in the process of migration. His work documents U.S. Latina/o, Mexican, and Caribbean performance practices ranging from theatre and concert dance to social dance, fashion and speech.

His teaching ranges from seminar courses on Latina/o and queer performance, sound and movement studies, and visual cultural studies to workshop courses on social art practices, the performances of non-fictional texts, ethnographic research methods, and performance art.

He is author of Performing Queer Latinidad: Dance, Sexuality, Politics (University of Michigan Press, 2012), a study of the role performance played in the development of Latina/o queer publics in the United States from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s. He is currently conducting research for his next book project, Exhibiting Performance: Race, Museum Cultures, and the Live Event, which looks at the ways race has been collected and exhibited in North America and the Caribbean since the mid-1990s.

Education

PhD	Theater, University of Texas-Austin (emphasis in performance as public practice)
MA	Theatre Studies, City University of New York
BA	Art History, University of Rochester (focus on contemporary visual cultural studies)

Recent Publications

Performing Queer Latinidad: Dance, Sexuality, Politics (University of Michigan Press, 2012), an exploration of the relationships between performance and politics among Latina/o queer communities in the U.S.

Performance in the Borderlands (Palgrave, 2011), a volume of critical essays co-edited with Harvey Young (NU Theatre) that examines a range of cultural performances produced in relation to the tensions and movements of/about the border. The collection includes his chapter: "Crossing Hispaniola: Cultural Erotics at the Haitian-Dominican Borderlands." 

"Dancing Reggaetón in Cowboy Boots," in Transnational Encounters: Music and Performance at the U.S.-Mexico Border, ed. Alejandro Madrid (Oxford University Press, 2011): 373-392.

"Exhibiting Voice/Narrating Migration: Performance-based Curatorial Practice in Azúcar! The Life and Music of Celia Cruz," Text and Performance Quarterly 29.2 (2009): 131-148.

Other writings and reviews on Latina/o performance have appeared in journals such as emisférica, Modern Drama, Ollantay Theatre Magazine, Theatre Journal,

TDR: The Journal of Performance Studies, Theatre Research International, The New West Indian Guide, Trans: Transnational Music Review, and The Smithsonian Institution Latina/o Virtual Gallery.

In progress

Exhibiting Performance: Race, Museums, and the Live Event (research support awarded the Smithsonian Institution), a critical look at the collection and exhibition of race in and as performance at museums and cultural heritage sites throughout North America and the Caribbean.

Blacktino Queer Performance: A Critical Anthology. Johnson, E. Patrick and Ramón H. Rivera-Servera, editors. A collection of performance scripts, interviews, and critical essays about African-American and Latina/o queer experience.

solo/black/woman (Northwestern University Press). Johnson, E. Patrick and Ramón H. Rivera-Servera, editors. A collection of black feminist performance scripts, interviews with artists, and critical essays by leading scholars.

Festival Latino: Six plays from the Goodman Theatre’s Latino Theatre Festival(Northwestern University Press). Rivera-Severa, Ramón H. and Henry Godinez, editors.

Service and Associations

Rivera-Servera is a member of the board of directors and the editorial board of the Society of Dance History Scholars, the executive committee of the Division of Gay Studies in Language and Literature of the Modern Languages, and the editorial board of Theatre Topics. He is also a member of the Research and Publications Committee of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education where he was president and a founding officer of the Latina/o Performance Focus Group.

Courses

PERF_ST 315-0	Performance of Non-Fiction
PERF_ST 330-0	Topics: Queer Sexualities and Popular Culture
PERF_ST 330-0	Topics: Sounding America
PERF_ST 335-0	Social Art Tactics
PERF_ST 515-0	Seminar: Queer Globalizations
PERF_ST 515-0	Seminar: Performance in the Borderlands
PERF_ST 515-0	Seminar: Performing Race