Lorena Alvarado
National Sentiment, Global Stage
April 26, 2011
12pm Kaufman room 160
Sentimiento demands attention. Look at me! Listen! Sentimiento, the embodiment of heartache, solitude, love and longing in the Mexican canción ranchera-- is at the heart of this presentation. In this talk, I analyze how sentimiento's aesthetic of emotional excess is re-signified when performed in a cross-border context, particularly in the work of Oaxacan singer-songwriter Lila Downs. She claims the ranchera, and thus its methods of fervent emotional expression, as a musical influence in her oft-labeled world music. Drawing from performances of songs from her albums La Cantina (2006) and Border: La Linea (2001), I explore how Downs' renditions of rancheras and sentimiento (from her gut) grants her repertoire an aura of "authenticity" and enhances the discourse of mestizaje and borderlands often generated around her persona. Moreover, I examine the problematic effects and affects of sentimiento as embodied by Downs: as both "innate" and performative, as an exoticized expression of Mexican feeling and a form of cultural discipline and vocal technique that affirms and challenges national identity.
Lorena Alvarado earned her B.A. from UC Santa Cruz in Modern Literature and Latin@ Studies and her M.A. from UCLA in Culture and Performance. She looks forward to completing her manuscript, Corporealities of Feeling, this Spring.
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