Bodies on the Front Lines is an anthology that explores the intersections of performance, gender, sexuality, race and class within the context of Latin America and the Caribbean in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Edited by Brenda Werth and Katherine Zien, the collection focuses on how bodies – particularly gendered and sexualized bodies – occupy spaces of power, resistance and survival in regions with histories of colonialism, violence and sociopolitical upheaval.

The volume is organized around the ways performance operates as a tool for contesting and reaffirming power structures, highlighting how theatrical and performative practices challenge hegemonic narratives surrounding gender and sexuality. It also addresses broader concerns such as human rights, the militarization of everyday life and anti-colonial resistance. The collection is wide-ranging in its examination of various performative forms, including theatre, street protests, rituals and digital performance, illustrating how bodies engage with the social and political landscapes that shape their experiences. Each chapter examines a different facet of performance, grounded in theoretical frameworks drawn from gender and queer studies, critical race theory and coloniality of power. For example, contributors analyse the role of protest art in Peru (Bethsabé Huamán Andía), the use of the body in public demonstrations in Brazil (Carla Melo) and how Caribbean performance traditions interrogate colonial legacies (Tara Daly). A central theme throughout the book is how marginalized groups use performance as a means of survival and a form of protest in environments marked by oppression, heteronormativity and patriarchal control.

The editors place gender and sexuality at the forefront of their analysis, providing a nuanced understanding of how these identities are performed in spaces of resistance and conflict. The chapters demonstrate how performance serves not only as a mode of expression and a site of embodied struggle for feminist and LGBTQAI+ communities. Particularly powerful are the discussions of trans, queer and feminist performers who use their bodies to resist erasure, violence and invisibility within patriarchal and heteronormative societies, as examined by Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes in ‘Fathering Foes: Mickey Negrón’s Religious Transloca Ritual’. Zien and Werth curate contributions that unpack the complex negotiations between national identity, gender performance and global power structures, revealing how these forces intersect among non-binary social sectors in Latin America and the Caribbean. The collection addresses how bodies on the front lines – both metaphorically and literally – bear the weight of cultural and political conflicts. For instance, Paola S. Hernández examines the work of Mexico’s Teatro Línea de Sombra and testimonies of women from Ciudad Juárez to expose the continuous femicides across the US–Mexico border.

What sets Bodies on the Front Lines apart from other collections on performance is its explicit and inclusive discussions on gender and sexuality studies. The book draws attention to the unique histories and sociopolitical climates that shape performance beyond the regions of Latin America and the Caribbean. For example, the chapters by Cecilia Sosa and Ana Elena Puga discuss how the intergenerational feminist intervention use their bodies and materiality in public protests not only to demand accountability for their ‘disappeared’ children during the dictatorship in Argentina or the migrations from Central America to the United States, but also to emphasize acts of solidarity and kindness. Their form of embodied resistance demonstrates how gendered and maternal identities became politicized in their fight for justice. Similarly, chapters on performance in the Dominican Republic (Camilla Stevens) and Bolivia (Nell Haynes) emphasize how Afro-diasporic and Indigenous communities use performance to reclaim and assert their identities against colonial histories and the coloniality of gender. Equally important in this volume is the approach of digital activism, digital testimonies and the digital body, furthering discussion of the role of the archive and its performativity. Olga Rodríguez-Ulloa’s and Candice Amich’s chapters invite us to rethink the digital interconnections between archives, bodies and activism to reflect on systemic gendered and racialized violence in Cuba and Peru.

Undoubtedly, Bodies on the Front Lines is a significant contribution to theatre, performance and gender studies, providing readers with a vivid and complex picture of how performance functions as a medium of resistance in the face of political, social and cultural violence. The editors and contributors critically reflect on how poner el cuerpo, as a concept and a practice, mobilizes bodies in public spaces and how performance can confront and transcend systems of power in Latin American and the Caribbean.