Kiri Avelar Presenting At NYU

Assistant Professor Kiri Avelar will be presenting her research “Transnational Family Dance Lineages of the U.S./Mexico Bracero Program” at the upcoming conference “Aesthetics of Joy and Refuge in Contemporary Culture,” hosted by The Latinx Project at New York University. See information on the conference, which will take place Friday, October 10 at NYU, here.

Abstract
This presentation will explore the extensive reach and influence of the Chicano Movement by examining the contemporary choreographies it has inspired. It will particularly focus on works created by descendants of individuals who participated in the U.S.-Mexico Bracero Program, an exploitative binational labor initiative. I utilize pláticas-testimonios (Carmona Flores et al., 2018) and SIGuache (Fernandez et al., 2024) to trace the creative expressions of four contemporary dance artists and their choreographies across locations in Mexico, the United States, and Cuba. These Chicana/Latina dance artists have developed works reflecting their families' migration stories and lived experiences within the program. I am particularly interested in how these artists' creative processes—where and when they create and perform their art—shape their personal migration stories while also mapping their families' migration histories. I am also curious about the gendered economy of this art. I question and explore what it means for these feminista transborder dancemakers—the daughters of these laborers—to speak, advocate, and create on behalf of their fathers’ and grandfathers’ experiences through their choreographies. Their works not only pay homage to the sacrifices of love and labor made by their families in the Bracero Program but also serve as a refusal to forget these histories.