Each and every time we learn of a teacher, activist,
scholar, artist, professor, organizer, coordinator, or facilitator who is or
has used The Panza Monologues as a teaching tool, we are extremely
gratified and thankful. Our second edition of the play in publication was
specifically conceived of and designed to help facilitate its use in classrooms
of all kinds. We included numerous kinds of materials to accompany the script
in order to inspire its use as a wide reaching teaching tool.
Our blog series "Pedagogy of the Panza" celebrates
and profiles teachers and their innovative instruction using The Panza Monologues, Second Edition. These posts showcase important,
determined, and ingenious teachers of all kinds who are taking our work to the
next level of its manifestation. Are you using The Panza Monologues,
Second Edition in your classroom? We’d love to hear your story – contact
us! panzapower@gmail.com
Name: Carla Della Gatta
Hometown: Los Angeles, where I currently live.
Where do you teach?
I am an Assistant Professor of Critical Studies at the
School of Dramatic Arts at the University of Southern California. I
taught The Panza Monologues at Northwestern University earlier this year.
In what class/type of class did you use The
Panza Monologues in?
It was an upper-division seminar called “Latina Theatre
& Feminisms” that was cross-listed in Gender & Sexuality Studies,
Latina and Latino Studies, and Theatre.
Why did you choose to teach The Panza Monologues in your
class?
I chose The Panza Monologues for a number of reasons. First,
the class included the term “Latina Theatre” in the title but I wanted to
challenge any limits that the term implies. The students read plays
written by Latinas, but the subject matter of the plays varied widely. They
also read a play written by a Latino with a strong Latina lead role and
discussed various Latina performance pieces. Second, the class
discussed the Latina body as a site of memory in the theoretical readings on
Chicana Feminism and in discussions on other plays, so having The Panza
Monologues as the penultimate text really brought a lot of the course themes
together. Third, Virginia & Irma’s voice and Virginia's
performance style are essential to discussing Latina performance as a genre
today, and where it falls in the trajectory of Latina and Latino theatre
history.
The class first watched the DVD of the performance without
reading the book. This allowed students to experience the piece with
the dramaturgy and performance elements. I also showed clips from
Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues, and the students discussed the different
methods for solo performance, especially the use of voice and music.
After watching the video, we discussed some of the book’s contents, especially Virginia & Irma’s research process that led to the stories in the piece and the emphasis that Virginia and Irma place on pedagogy. Because of the first-person narration and the physicality of the storytelling style, the students initially thought that these were Virginia’s personal stories. We talked about theatre as a tool for raising consciousness and the ethics of performing other people’s narratives, especially when they focus on the body, sexuality, and violence.
Why is The Panza Monologues important to your field of
study? What conversations/issues did the book raise?
The Latina body is often eroticized or maternalized in the
media and in popular culture, but in Virginia & Irma’s work it is presented
as a site of collective and personal memory. The collective memory
includes a history of structural violence toward the Latino community,
especially Chicanas/os, in the form of food deserts and mis-education about
diet and the body. We devoted a unit solely to Xicanisma early in
the term, and the students related the concept of Theory in the Flesh and ideas
about embodied knowledge to The Panza Monologues. Virginia &
Irma’s piece brought all of it together.
What did you learn about your teaching or about your
students from teaching The Panza Monologues?
I learned that my students, who were from a variety of
backgrounds, would each relate to something different in the piece. I
expected to talk about solo performance as a genre and performance elements
(the use of the altar, music, and physicality), but the discussions ranged from
the representation of the female body in the mainstream media to the historical
relationships of food and cultures to making the body an agent of
activism.
Favorite Quote from The Panza Monologues Book?
"I never wanted to look like her, but slowly the image of my mother crept into my own body." From "Cha-Cha to Panza"
***
Carla Della Gatta is an Assistant Professor of Critical Studies at the USC School of Dramatic Arts. She has published articles and reviews in academic journals, and served as a dramaturg, translator, and scholar for the theatre. Her research areas include early modern drama and theatre history, Latina/o Theatre, Spanish Golden Age theatre, adaptation theory, postcolonial feminism, and critical race theory.
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