Ana Martinez

Ana Martínez
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR

Department of Theatre and Dance
College of Fine Arts and Communication
512-245-6079
alm462@txstate.edu

Areas of Interest: Mexican, Latinx, and Latin American Theatre and Performance; Site-specific Performance; Scenography and Performance Design

Dr. Ana Martínez is a theatre scholar and performance designer. She holds a doctoral degree in Theatre Studies from the City University of New York, an MA in Scenography from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London, and an Architecture degree from Universidad Anahuac in Mexico.

As a scholar, she integrates a knowledge of performance and spatial practices with socially grounded research. Her fields of specialization are theatre practices in Mexico, Latin American drama, and site-specific performance. Her book, "Performance in the Zócalo: Constructing History, Race, and Identity in Mexico's Central Square from the Colonial Era to the Present" (University of Michigan Press, 2020). It is the first full English-language manuscript to address the ways in which the material center of the Mexican capital, the Zócalo, manifests and contests its symbolic power through performances practices. Her chapter "Scenographies behind the Scenes" in the edited collection The Stage's Glory: John Rich reconstructs some of Covent Garden's eighteenth-century scenographies through an inventory of sets, props, and costumes. Her chapter on the 2001 march by the Zapatistas to the Zócalo is included in "Performance and the Global City."

Her work as a performance designer has been shown in the US, England, Germany, and Mexico. Ana has been engaged in creating dramaturgically innovative shows and installations. Her creations foreground performance as a collaborative enterprise and unique medium for experimentation, interaction, and social comment.