Work

On Censorship, Silence, and Rubble: Reflections on the Destruction of a Performance Venue in Mexico City

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: This article reflects on a little-told story of musical and cultural censorship: the Mexican government's 1996 destruction of the Foro Abierto, a 2,000-seater auditorium in the heart of Chapultepec Park in Mexico City. The Foro Abierto was the home of an anarchist theatre group called CLETA, and was an important venue for a number of genre-crossing musicians. This venue was destroyed by the police just before CLETA was to inaugurate it as part of the rebel Zapatista movement. Several days later, a musician from CLETA was assassinated. Responding to the material turn in music studies, this article combines ethnographic and archival research to explore articulations between rubble and censorship. The venue's destruction disempowered and disarticulated CLETA, to the extent that an unsettling silence emerged about this act on the site of the venue itself. Equally, constructive responses to the complexities of censorship may also emerge from acts of material and ideational de-structuration.

Source: twentieth-century music

DOI: 10.1017/s1478572224000203

Author: ANDREW J. GREEN

Institution: King's College London

Language: English

Topic: Diverse Musicological Studies

Subfield: Music

Field: Arts and Humanities

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Peace, justice, and strong institutions

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,550