Decolonizing the Stage

Hegemonic Canon, Silences, and Resistances in Mexican Scenography (1895-1975)

Abstract

This article presents a critical review of the historiography of Mexican scenography between 1895 and 1975, proposing a decolonial analysis that unravels the mechanisms of power, gender, and coloniality that have structured its canonical narrative. It critically examines how the Mexican scenographic canon organizes the memory of the stage through operations of selection, distortion, and omission, thereby rendering invisible technical knowledge, popular practices, and subaltern subjects. Employing hermeneutics of suspicion and a decolonial framework, the analysis focuses on the mechanisms through which this canon institutes regimes of visibility that legitimize certain narratives while condemning others to oblivion. It is argued that historiographical renewal requires not only expanding the documentary corpus but also undertaking an epistemological decolonization capable of questioning inherited analytical categories and recognizing the agency of historically marginalized creators. The article is structured around three main axes: the coloniality of scenographic knowledge, the intersectionality of gender, and the creative resistances that have contested the hegemonic canon. Through the analysis of primary archives from the National Institute of Fine Arts and a critical re-reading of theatrical collections, the study proposes a decolonial, dialogical, and politically conscious scenographic historiography.