Jimmy Noriega receives Fulbright to Austria to create multimedia theatre piece

Jimmy A. Noriega, associate professor of theatre and Latin American Studies at The College of Wooster, has been awarded a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award to Austria to conduct research for a multimedia theatre piece that examines the history between Mexico and Austria. The award will enable Noriega to work in Vienna from February to May. He will be hosted by the MuseumsQuartier, one of the largest districts for contemporary art and culture in the world.

Noriega’s project is titled, “A Mexican-American in Vienna: A Multimedia Theatre Encounter.” His research will be based on interviews, work in museums, and site-specific artistic exploration around the city. He will merge his work in Austria with the research he conducted in Mexico this past summer on Maximilian I (the Emperor of Mexico), who was the younger brother of Franz Joseph I (the Emperor of Austria). “The two nations share a long and intricate history that many people are not aware of,” says Noriega. “My performance piece will complicate that history even further by interrogating it through my own identity as a Mexican-American working in Vienna.”

In addition to Austria’s imperial presence in Mexico in the 1800s, the unique connection between the two countries continued into the twentieth century. In 1938, Mexico became the only nation to protest the Nazi annexation of Austria. “My research will examine these historical connections and how they reverberate today,” explains Noriega. “But it will also be crafted as a way to present the Mexican-American identity, history, and perspective to the people of Austria. Through autoethnography and other forms of research, I plan to examine the ways the Mexican-American community has been represented and understood abroad.” Noriega will write and direct his piece, which will be presented in the museum as the culmination of his project.

Noriega is the current president of the American Society for Theatre Research. He has directed over fifty productions in English and Spanish, including invited performances at theatres and festivals in Mexico, India, Greece, Ireland, Israel, Romania, Colombia, Peru, Canada, Belgium, Ecuador, and across the United States. He is the founder of his own theatre company, Teatro Travieso/Troublemaker Theatre (www.teatrotravieso.org), which has produced eleven plays since 2014. He has co-edited Theatre and Cartographies of Power: Repositioning the Latina/o Americas (Southern Illinois University Press, 2018) and 50 Key Figures in Queer US Theatre (Routledge, 2022). Noriega’s research and teaching focuses on Latinx and Latin American theatre and performance, as well as theatre for social change, directing, and acting.

Fulbright alumni include 60 Nobel Prize laureates, 88 Pulitzer Prize recipients, and 39 who have served as a head of state or government. The Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs is pleased to announce that 2021 marks the 75th Anniversary of the Fulbright Program.

Posted in News on February 24, 2022.