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Restoring Everyday Practices to the Golden-Age Dramatic Canon: El alcalde de Zalamea in Zalamea, by Zalamea

2009; Routledge; Volume: 10; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Espanhol

10.1179/146827309x12447961290177

1745-820X

Elena García‐Martín,

Spanish Literature and Culture Studies

AbstractThis paper examines a production of Calderón's El alcalde de Zalamea, performed in Zalamea by residents of Zalamea, as a specific exercise in presentism that connects the cultural situation of the peasantry in sixteenth-century Spain with that of its rural areas today. In this analysis I bring to bear the notion of 'coloniality of power' upon rural cultural practices. While the Counter-Reformation's quasi-mythical image of the peasant as Cristiano viejo was exploited and imposed at the cost of eliminating local rural culture, the historic image of the Zalamea is exploited today for the sake of picturesque exoticism and nostalgia. Yet, I examine how, even from a subaltern position, these local productions redefine Zalamea as a historic De Certeaunian 'space' scripted by local quotidian practices rather than as a fixed place invented by Calderón. In addition to the geographic position of Zalamea as a marginal topos, away from the national and the urban centres, another aspect designates its productions as subculture: their situation in the borderlands between high culture and everyday life. The people of Zalamea have reappropriated the Calderonian text and turned it into a site of empowerment and subaltern knowledge. Besides valuing their productions as specific cultural expressions, I also propose them as a model for community productions of historical plays and as a contribution to the construction of a geographic politics of identity.This paper examines a production of Calderón's El alcalde de Zalamea, performed in Zalamea by residents of Zalamea, as a specific exercise in presentism that connects the cultural situation of the peasantry in sixteenth-century Spain with that of its rural areas today. In this analysis I bring to bear the notion of 'coloniality of power' upon rural cultural practices. While the Counter-Reformation's quasi-mythical image of the peasant as Cristiano viejo was exploited and imposed at the cost of eliminating local rural culture, the historic image of the Zalamea is exploited today for the sake of picturesque exoticism and nostalgia. Yet, I examine how, even from a subaltern position, these local productions redefine Zalamea as a historic De Certeaunian 'space' scripted by local quotidian practices rather than as a fixed place invented by Calderón. In addition to the geographic position of Zalamea as a marginal topos, away from the national and the urban centres, another aspect designates its productions as subculture: their situation in the borderlands between high culture and everyday life. The people of Zalamea have reappropriated the Calderonian text and turned it into a site of empowerment and subaltern knowledge. Besides valuing their productions as specific cultural expressions, I also propose them as a model for community productions of historical plays and as a contribution to the construction of a geographic politics of identity.Este ensayo examina una producción de El alcalde de Zalamea de Calderón, realizada en Zalamea por los residentes de Zalamea, como ejemplo específico de producción y experiencia locales de una tradición cultural que hasta ahora ha sido considerada casi exclusivamente desde una perspectiva urbana, académica, y metropolitana. Este ejercicio comparativo conecta la situación del labriego español del siglo xvi con el de hoy, considerando los efectos de las dinámicas culturales exclusivistas del poder colonial en relación con la política económicocultural rural de hoy. Mientras que la Contra-reforma explotó e impuso la imagen casi mítica del labrador como cristiano viejo, aún a costa de eliminar la cultura local, la imagen histórica de Zalamea se explota hoy con fines comerciales. En este estudio se revelan los medios de reapropiación del texto calderoniano a través de los cuales se ensayan formas de control cultural y auto-definición que redefinen al pueblo de Zalamea no como espacio fijado y ficticio sino como lugar vivido. Además de valorar la producción como una expresión cultural que origina en un lugar periférico, se propone como modelo posible para producciones históricas locales que cuestionan los límites entre la alta cultura y las prácticas cotidianas de las que nos habla De Certeau. El objetivo principal aquí es mostrar cómo esta representación contemporánea del teatro Áureo se constituye en una dramatización de resistencia donde los artistas y público locales reinterpretan distinciones asumidas, como las de lugar/espacio y centro/margen, a la vez que reconfiguran aspectos de su identidad a través de la reinterpretación de su propia historia.Keywords: CALDERÓN DE LA BARCACOMEDIADE CERTEAUPARTICIPATORY CULTURELOCAL CULTURECOMMUNAL IDENTITY