The Monstrogenealogy of Yara Travieso's La Medea

Authors

• Gabriela Trigo-McIntyre

Abstract

Unruly, abject, violent, foreign, racialized, Other, a monstrous-feminine witch: Medea is shadowed by her past iterations, carrying the burden of a monstrogenealogy that stretches back multiple millennia. The purpose of this article is twofold: 1) to establish a monstrogenealogy of Medea, briefly examining legacies of the witch, abjection, and the imbrication of coloniality reflected in Latin American/Latine Medeas in order to then 2) examine the decolonial implications of Yara Travieso’s 2017 performance La Medea, which uses Medea’s monstrogenealogy as counterpoint to her “Latin-disco-pop” production. Rather than give voice to the maligned monster, however, Travieso explodes the mythic character altogether by continuously asking “Who is La Medea?” The question pulses through Travieso’s kaleidoscopic production, offering the audiences multiple versions and visions of Medea. Part dance, part film, part concert, part variety show, Travieso interrupts Medea’s assumed monstrogenealogy by deconstructing the “savage” character and provoking the questions: what if everything we know about Medea is wrong? More, what if there is no definitive Medea? This article excavates how Travieso’s adaptation interrupts the evolution of the Medea-monster by providing a multi-bodied, multi-media and multi-Medea adaptation that evades epistemic colonial reductions and provokes decolonial alternatives.

Recommended Citation

Trigo-McIntyre, Gabriela (2026) "The Monstrogenealogy of Yara Travieso's La Medea," Comparative Drama: Vol. 60: Iss. 3, Article 6.
Available at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/compdr/vol60/iss3/6