Theorizing Performance Archives through the Critic's Labor

Abstract

In 2015, I traveled to Havana with the support of an ASTR Targeted Areas Research Grant to work on processing the physical materials of the Photographic Archive of Tablas-Alarcos Press (hereinafter the Tablas-Alarcos archive or collection). The Tablas-Alarcos archive is a unique collection because it exists not in a traditional research institution, but in the offices of a state-run press dedicated to the performing arts. Also, it consists of materials that have been saved after critics, researchers, and editors have completed the process of publishing their work. Much more than photographs, this collection also contains programs, unpublished manuscripts, and various theatre ephemera from all over the globe and in multiple languages.1