The origins of a category: a study on the concept of avant-garde in Chilean theatrical historiography

Abstract

It is common to use avant-garde as a category to think upon the theatre from the second half of the 20th Century. In French drama it became commonsense when referring to the so-called "theatre of the absurd" and in Hispanic American theatrical historiography, the term also spread. The work of important authors from the period, such as the Chilean Jorge Díaz (1930-2007) and the Argentinean Griselda Gambaro (1928 -) got that denomination. In Argentinian criticism it was widely reconsidered, whereas in Chilean criticism it consolidated over the years. This project, regarding the avant-garde category in its problematic epistemological sense, intends to learn about its origins on Chilean drama. For such, we propose a study on he public reviews in newspapers and magazines specialized in Díaz's plays, which premiered between 1960-1964. This return in time has as an objective to construct a panel and to identify the avant-garde elements that the criticism perceived in this work in order to understand the path from this category to its consolidation in current historiography. (AU)