Borderlands Shakespeare Colectiva is pleased to announce “Adapting, Translating, and Performing Shakespeare in the U.S.–Mexico Borderlands,” a two-day conference where we will explore how artists, scholars, and teachers have engaged with Shakespeare to reflect the histories and lived realities of the U.S.–Mexico Borderlands. The event will take place on March 7th and March 8th at Texas A&M University–San Antonio and Trinity University. It will feature panels, keynote lectures, workshops, conversations with Chicanx and Indigenous playwrights, a performance of corridos by Azul Barrientos, a community partnership with Teatro Audaz for a performance of Gregg Barrios’s I-DJ, and much more.

Borderlands artists have repurposed Shakespeare’s plays to tell their stories for several decades, but scholars are only just beginning to study these aesthetically innovative and politically complex works. Imagine, for instance, Romeo and Juliet set in the context of Día de los Muertos, Ophelia in conversation with La Llorona, or Shakespeare’s chorus as a corridista. Our event will bring playwrights, artists, performers, scholars, students, and teachers together to discuss the socially just futures envisioned en el arte de La Frontera and to transform how Shakespeare is taught and performed.