Thomas Abercrombie

Thomas Abercombie (Ph.D. University of Chicago, 1986) is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at NYU. Based on his first field work in a Bolivian Aymara pueblo and his historical researches in both Spanish and Bolivian archives, he has published several articles. He is the author of Ethnology and History of an Andean People (University of Wisconsin, 1998) about social memory as displayed in rituals and other performances, poetically organized (such as dance, storytelling, drinking). He has also worked on the orureño Carnival and the history of festival performances among people (or "popular class") in an Andean city. He is involved with gender issues and the study of storytelling in cases of transgression of social norms.

Lourdes Arizpe

Dr. Arizpe is Professor of Anthropology at the Universidad Nacional AutÛnoma de MÈxico, and former Assistant Director-General for Culture at the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). She is currently a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at New York University's Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies and King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center. Her visit has been organized under the auspices of the Andres Bello Chair in Latin American Cultures and Civilizations. The Andres Bello Chair was established at the King Juan Carlos Center thanks to the generosity of the CITGO Petroleum Corporation, the US affiliate of PetrÛleos de Venezuela. The Chair enables the Center to bring eminent figures to campus for research, teaching, and participation in public programs.

Gage Averill

Gage Averill is Professor of Music, Chair of the Music Department, and Coordinator of the Program in Ethnomusicology at New York University. He is author of A Day for the Hunter, A Day for the Prey: Popular Music and Power in Haiti (Chicago 1997) and Four Parts, No Waiting: A Social History of American Barbershop Harmony (Oxford, forthcoming). His research interests include Caribbean popular music, music and power, North American vernacular music, and public sector ethnomusicology.

Susana Baca

Susana Baca is the foremost singer of Afro-Peruvian music. Her music, on Luaka Bop lable, has promoted an awareness of the many cultural contributions of African-Peruvians. Also to this aim, she and her husband Ricardo Pereira are the founders and co-directors of the Instituto Negrocontinuo in Lima.

Gisela Canepa Koch

Ms. Koch is a Professor of Anthropology in the Social Studies Department at Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú where she also co-chairs the Taller de Antropologia Visual (Visual Anthropology Workshop). She received her Master's in Anthropology at the Pontificia Católica and her doctorate studies at the University of Chicago, Illinois. She was awarded with scholarships from Century Fellowship and Consejo Latino Americano de Ciencias Sociales-CLACSO. She is the author of Máscara, Transformación e Identidad en los Andes (Mask, Transformation and Identity in the Andes; Lima: PUC, 1998) and has edited Identidades Representadas: performance, experiencia y memoria en los Andes (Acted Identities: performance, experience and memory in the Andes; Lima:PUC, 2001). She has also directed four documentaries for the series Video Etnográficos del Centro de Etnomusicologia Andina de la PUCP (Ethnographic Videos for the Andes Ethnomusicology Center at PUCP) and the CD-ROM Multimidia, musica y ritual en los Andes peruanos (CD-ROM Multimedia, music and ritual in the Peruvian Andes; Lima: PUCP, 2001).

Las Agencias

Las Agencias is not a closed collective group of artists and political activists. It is a movement that was originated in Barcelona more than a year ago. People from different cities and countries - with experiences in intervention art - got together to share a mutual interest: to investigate the ways of making art where the most creative and ambiguous trends of political activism feed the contemporary tactics and artistic techniques. Las Agencias create, grow and destroy themselves in due time according to the projects they are involved in. Thus, the Agencia Grafica played an important role in the campaigns "Dinero Gratis", "BCN2001 - Contra el Banco Mundial, or "La Bolsa o la Vida." The Agencia de Medios was quite important in the gestation of IndyMedia in Barcelona. The Agencia de Moda y Complementos worked on projects such as "Prêt a Revolter" or the "tutte bianche" Hispanics. The Agencia Fotografica develops an important work concerning documentation in collaboration with solidarity networks dealing with migrants in the southern border of Spain. The Agencia Espacial has developed a series of vehicles from the ShowBus to the Video-Bicis or the Bicke-writers. The latest developed projects have been "New Kids on the Black Block"(www.newkidsontheblackblock.com) and Guerra Mítica (www.guerramitica.com). During the summer of 2002, under the title of "Ninguna Persona es illegal"(Nobody is illegal) Las Agencias will develop a project of exhibition and intervention related to migration and globalization issues in Madrid.

Pablo Delano

Pablo Delano was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico and moved to the USA at age 18 to attend university. He holds a BFA degree in painting from Tyler School of Art (Temple University) and an MFA degree in painting from Yale School of Art. He began to photograph when he moved to New York City in 1979, focusing on Caribbean communities, both in the US and in the islands. He has completed numerous community based public art projects, including commissions from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the U.S Department of the Interior. He is the author of Faces of America (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992) Currently, he is working on a book of photographs about cross-cultural worship and celebration in Trinidad, West Indies.

Ricardo Domínguez

Ricardo Dominguez is a co-founder of The Electronic Disturbance Theater (EDT), the group that developed Virtual-Sit In technologies in 1998 in solidarity with the Zapatista communities in Chiapas, Mexico. He is Senior Editor of The Thing (bbs.thing.net). He is a former member of Critical Art Ensemble (1987 to 1994), the originators of the theory of Electronic CivilDisobedience). He recently presented a 12 hour streaming media net.performance with Coco Fusco, entitled ÒDolores from 10h to 22hÓ from Finnish Museum of Contemporary Art, Kiasma, in Helsinki (www.kiasma.fi/ars/dolores), 2002. Ricardo was a Fake_Fakeshop Worker from 1997 to 2000 (www.fakeshop.com), a hybrid performance group, that was one of the first net.art projects presented at the Whitney Biennial 2000. Dominguez has collaborated on a number of international net_art projects. His first digital zapatismo project took place in 1996 - 97, a three month RealVideo/Audio network project: The Zapatista/Port Action at (MIT) with Ron Rocco. His essays have appeared at Ctheory (www.ctheory.org) and in "Corpus Delecti: Performance Art of the Americas," (Routledge, 2000), edited by Coco Fusco. He edited EDT's forthcoming book Hacktivism: network_art_activismÓ, (Autonomedia Press, 2002).

Lowell Fiet

Lowell Fiet (born in 1948) received his M.A, (1971) and his Doctorate in Languages (Ph.D., 1973) from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Since then, he has been studying theatre, the Hispanic Caribbean culture as well as the literature, language and culture of the English- and French-speaking regions in the Caribbean. Between 1992 and 1994, his student theater group, Taller de Imágenes, toured around the Latino communities of New York through the exchange program CUNY-UPR and also in the Dominican Republic and Cuba. Besides his published works in magazines, he has edited various volumes of essays: West Indian Literature and Its Political Context (1988), re-Definiciones: Espacio - global/nacional/cultural/personal - Caribeño (Definitions: Space - global/national/cultural/personal - Caribbean) (1977), Hablar/nombrar/pertenecer: el juego entre el idioma y la identidad en las culturas caribeñas (Speaking/naming/belonging: the game between language and identity in the Caribbean cultures) (1998), Un convite de poetas e teatreros: Voz y performance en las culturas caribeñas (An invitation to poets and theater people: Voice and performance in the Caribbean cultures) (1999), Performance and text in Caribbean Literature and Art (2000) and (con)Fusion cultura?: Performance e performeros transcaribeños (con-Fusion culture?: Performance and trans-Caribbean performance artist) (2001) among others.

Josh Kun

Josh Kun is Assistant Professor of English at UC Riverside and an arts columnist for the San Francisco Bay Guardian and The Boston Phoenix. He is a 2000-2002 Sundance Writers Fellow whose writing has appeared in the popular press (SPIN, Rolling Stone, Village Voice, LA Weekly), scholarly journals (Theatre Journal, American Literary History, American Jewish History), and book anthologies (James Baldwin Now, Everynight Life, Dangerous Border Crossers). He is the host of two Latin music video and culture shows (The Red Zone on MTV-Espanol and Rokamole on KJLA) and is a resident DJ with the US-UK-Latin America nightclub La Leche. He is currently completing his first book for UC Press, Strangers Among Sounds: Listening, Difference, and the Music of America.

Zeca Ligiero

Zeca Ligiero received his Doctorate in Performance Studies from NYU. He is the founder and coordinator of NEPPA at UNIRIO. He is a theater director, artist, writer and co-founder of the graduate and the doctorate programs in theater at UNIRIO where he has taught since 1989. He is the author of the essay "Candomblé is a religio-life-at" published in the book "Divine Inspiration" by New Mexico University Press. He is also the author of "Iniciação ao Candomblé" (Initiation to the Candomblé) (1993), "Umbanda: Paz, liberdade e cura"(Umbanda: Peace, freedom and healing) (1998) and "Carmen Miranda: An Africa-Brazilian Paradox"(to be released soon). He is an expert in both Brazilian and Afro-Indigenous performance studies.

Vivian Martínez Tabares

Vivian Martínez Tabares is a theater reviewer, researcher, editor and teacher. She is the author of Teatro por el Gran Octubre, José Sanchis Sinisterra: explorar las vías del texto dramático (José Sanchis Sinisterra: exploring the paths of the dramatic text) and Didascalias urgentes de una espectadora interesada. Several of her works have been part of anthologies about theater and she has been a collaborator for publications in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Cuba, Spain, E.U., France, Mexico, Puerto Rico and Sweden. She is an Associate Professor at the Instituto Superior de Arte and has lectured at universities in Latin America and Europe. She is a member of the Unión de Escritores y Artistas de Cuba (UENAC) and general secretary to the Centro Cubano de la Associación Internacional de Críticos de Teatro (AICT). She was awarded with a fellowship from "Programa Caribe 2000" from the Rockefeller Foundation at the Universidad de Puerto Rico (1996-97). She is chair of the magazine Conjunto and the Departamento de teatro de la Casa de las Américas, in Habana, Cuba.

Luis Millones

Professor Emeritus of Universidad Nacional San Cristóbal de Huamanga (Ayacucho, Peru) and Professor of the Literature Doctorate program of the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos. He was a visiting Professor at the University of Texas, Austin (1987), Stanford (1986) and Princeton (1991). He is a researcher for the Seminario Interdisciplinario de Estudios Andinos (Lima, Peru) and also a researcher at the Museo Etnológico Nacional de Japón in 1980 and 2000. He has published several works on Andean religions and ethnicity. He is the author of Dioses Familiares: Festivales Populares en el Perú Contemporáneo (Familiar Gods: Popular Festival in Contemporary Peru) (2001); Perú: el Legado de la Historia (Peru: the legacy of History) and Dioses y Demonios del Cuzco (Gods and Devils of Cuzco) (2001).

Luis Guillermo Nugent

Mr. Nugent is a historian at Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. He attended his graduate courses in Mexico and the United States. He is a Professor at PUCP, Universidad de Lima and the Universidad Peruana de Ciencias Aplicadas (Peruvian University of Applied Sciences). He is a contributor to the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Peru. He is the author of "El Conflicto de las sensibilidades"(The conflict of sensitivities), "El Poder Delgado", "El laberinto de la Choledad"(The labyrinth of Choledad), "Composición sin título"(Composition without a title) about the forms of representation of power in Peru and Latin America from the perspective of oral, written and audiovisual communication. He's currently a researcher for DESCO, in Lima, Peru.

Luis Peirano

Mr. Peirano is the founder and dean of the School of Sciences and Arts of Communication and the coordinator of the master's program in Communication at Pontificia Católica del Perú (PUCP). A sociologist at PUCP, he completed his post-graduation course in Social Communication at the University of Southern Illinois and the University of Wisconsin, Madison. From his first year studying at the School of Languages and Literature and also at the Theater of Universidad Catolica (TUC), he has participated in numerous productions and audiovisual projects. He has been a professor and director at TUC and has taught at several colleges since 1969. Mr. Peirano has been a researcher and chair of the education field as well as the president for DESCO(Center for Studies and Promotion of Development) and has been an expert in education and communication for 25 years. Mr. Peirano has been in the Editorial Board of the magazine "QueHacer" for many years. He has also been writing and directing communication projects for radio, video, cinema and video. He is the author of several works on the reform of media, culture and problems related to education in Peru.
In 1997, in commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the foundation of PUCP, Mr. Peirano directed "Cristales Rotos" by Arthur Miller and the auto Ël Gran teatro del mundo"by Pedro Calderón de la Barca. In 2001, he directed "Galileo Galilei" by Bertold Brecht.

Mary Louise Pratt

Mary Louise Pratt is professor and chair of Spanish and Portuguese and professor of Comparative Literature and at Stanford University. Her publications include Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (1992), Women, Culture and Politics in Latin America (co-authored), Linguistics for Students of Literature (with Elizabeth C. Traugott, 1980), and Toward a Speech Act Theory of Literary Discourse (1977), as well as several essays on literature, culture and politics. Books in progress include Mujer y ciudadanía: historia de discursos, 1820 1997/Gender and Citizenship: Latin American Women Engage the Nation, 1820-1997; and In This Together with Renato Rosaldo.

Iñigo Ramirez de Haro

Mr. Ramirez de Haro is an aeronautics engineer, diplomat and philologist. He is the programming director at Casa de America in Madrid. As an actor, his theatrical background began at the Centro de Estudios Teatrales de José Luis Gómez (José Luiz Gómez's Center of Theatrical Studies) in Madrid in 1978. He also attended courses at Estudio de Martin Adjemin as well as New York's Actor's Studio and seminars with Dominique de Facio, John Strasberg etc. He has worked on several theatrical and movie projects. He was awarded Best Actor for the film "Acosado" by Rafael Moleon. As a theater director, he started as an assistant director at Teatro Maria Guerrer, in Madrid, under the direction of Lluis Pascual and assistant director at Teatro Español under the management of Miguel Narros. He directed "La Buhardilla"at Bogota's T.P.B. Mr. Ramirez de Haro has directed productions and acted at Teatro Nacional de Bogota along with artists from Colombia, Argentina, and Spain. He has been a visiting professor at some universities.

Gustavo Remedi

Gustavo Remedi, Uruguayan, Associate Professor at Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut. Obtained his M. A. and Ph. D. in Hispanic Literature and Comparative Studies in Discourse and Society from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. Author of Murgas: El teatro de los tablados (Montevideo: Trilce, 1996; soon to by published in translation by the University of Minnesota Press) for which he was awarded the 1997 First Prize in the category Essay on Art from the Uruguayan Ministry of Culture and Education, and La Modernidad Desbordada (Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2001) the Spanish translation of Arjun Appadurai's major work. While discussing various kinds of cultural artifacts and manifestations (popular theatre, urban space and its impact on politics and culture, community radios, global flows and local cultural mediation) his many publications at home and abroad revolve around the fundamental question of the reconstruction and reorganization of the urban public sphere in the aftermath of Uruguay's neoliberal dictatorship.

Milla Cozart Riggio

James J. Goodwin Professor of English at Trinity College, Hartford, Ct., specializes in Caribbean Carnival, Shakespeare, and medieval English drama. She guest edited a special issue of TDR on Trinidad and Tobago Carnival (1998). Her publications also include The Play of Wisdom: Its Texts and Contexts (1999), Teaching Shakespeare Through Performance (2000), and Culture in Action: Trinidad and Tobago Carnival (forthcoming in the Routledge Worlds of Performance series, 2003). She has worked as a professional dramaturg on Richard Schechner's Hamlet, and with Mark Lamos on Romeo and Juliet, Sheridan's the Rivals, Cymbeline, and currently Much Ado About Nothing.

Jesusa Rodríguez

Ms. Rodríguez is an actress and director. She was born in Mexico in 1955. She was awarded Best Actress for El Concilio de Amor at the Montreal's Festival de Las Americas in 1989. In 1990, she was awarded with a Guggenheim grant. In 1994-1997, she received an Arts ad Humanities grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. Along with Liliana Felipe, she renovated the Teatro la Capilla and founded the cabaret El Habito in which she has acted and directed more than 320 productions in ten years (1990-2000). In 1996, she directed a video version of Mozart's opera Cosí Fan Tutte and Da Ponte. In 1997, she directed a version for the opera Primero Sueño de Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (Sister Juana Inés de la Cruz's first dream). In 1998 and 1999, she acted in "Las Horas de Belén" in Mexico and New York. In 2000, she presented José Ramón Enríquez's El Fuego (The Fire). Renato Leduc's Prometeo Sifilítico (Prometeus stricken with syphilis) and adapted Esquilo's Prometeo Encadenado (Prometeus in chains). In 2000, along with Liliana Felipe, she was awarded with an OBIE from New York's The Village Voice. In 2000, Ms. Rodríguez opened the Teatro Brava, in San Francisco, CA, with her play Belén. At present, she is working on Shakespeare's Macbeth.

Raúl Romero

Mr. Romero is the coordinator and Professor of the master's program in Anthropology at Universidad Nacional Mayor at San Marcos. He is also the Executive Director of the Pontificia Católica del Perú's Centro de Etnomusicologia Andina (Center for Andean Ethnomusicology). He is the author of "Música, Danza and Máscara en los Andes (Music Dance and Mask in the Andes, Lima, 1993) and Debating the Past, Music, Memory and Identity in the Andes (New York, 2001).

Hector Rosales

Mr. Rosales was born in Mexico in 1956. He graduated in Sociology at Escuela Nacional de Estudios Profesionales Actlán, received his master's in Urbanism at the Facultad de Arquictetura and his doctorate in Latin American Studies. All his degrees were obtained from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Mr. Rosales is responsible for the Program Institutions, Politics and Cultural Diversity from the Centro Regional de Investigaciones Multidisciplinares (Regional Center for Multidisciplinary Research). At present, Mr. Rosales is working on two projects: Diversidad, Cultura y Creatividad (Diversity, Culture and Creativity) and Theater and Thought in Latin America. He is responsible for the webpage: www.crim.unam.mx/cultura.

Robert Stam

Profesor in the Cinema Studies Department at New York University. His many books include Tropical Multiculturalism:
A Comparative History of Race in Brazilian Cinema and Culture (1997); Brazilian Cinema, co-authored with Randal Johnson (1995); Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media, with Ella Shohat (1994), which won the Catherine Singer Kovocs "Best Film Book Award"; Subversive Pleasures: Bakhtin, Cultural Criticism, and Film (1992) andFilm Theory: An Introduction. Unthinking Eurocentrism and Film Theory: An Introduction are both forethcoming in Spanish versions from Paidos Publishers.

Victor Vich

Mr. Vich received his Ph.D. from Georgetown University. He is a researcher at Pontificia Católica del Perú's Instituto de Estudios Peruanos (Institute for Peruvian Studies). His work focuses on the use of language on the street, therefore, the public spaces as centers of construction and deconstruction of social imaginary and popular opinion. He is the author of El Discurso de la calle: los comicos ambulantes y las tensiones de la modernidad en el Perú (The discourse of the street: the traveling actors and the tension of the modernity in Peru).