PMA Graduate Student Isabel Padilla Carlo has won the 2024 Marvin Carlson Award for Best Student Essay for Theatre or Performance for her essay ”Si Tu No Sabe Kokobalé” and The Reclamation of Collective Memory as a Praxis of Liberation.
Isabel shared this summary of the work:
“The essay critically examines the factors that contributed toward the erasure of kokobalé, an Afro-Boricua martial art and dance form, from Puerto Rican’s collective memory and somatic repertoire, utilizing the recorded history of capoeira to contextualize kokobalé's trajectory in the 20th century. With an overview of performances by Proyecto Kokobalé, Bomba Con Consciencia, and Estudio 353, who are among the community leaders facilitating kokobalé’s recent revival, the essay explores how practitioners engage in maroon choreographies, asserting their refusal to surrender to colonial powers, and reinforcing the inseparable link between cultural heritage and their ongoing struggle for liberation.
I am truly honored to have received this award, but more so, I am glad that with my writing I am able to share the history of kokobalé and the work of community leaders like Carlos "Xiorro" Padilla from Proyecto Kokobalé, who continues embodying, archiving, and disseminating this practice.”
The Marvin Carlson Award honors CUNY Professor Marvin Carlson (CU PhD '61) and consists of a cash prize ($250) and certificate.
Marvin Carlson is a Sidney E. Cohn Distinguished Professor Emeritus, CUNY, Comparative Literature, Theater and Performance, Middle Eastern Studies, and Global Early Modern Studies. He earned a PhD in Drama and Theatre from Cornell University (1961), where he also taught for a number of years. Marvin is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has received an honorary doctorate from the University of Athens, Greece, the ATHE Career Achievement Award, the ASTR Distinguished Scholarship Award, the Bernard Hewitt prize, the George Jean Nathan Award, the Calloway Prize, the George Freedley Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He is the founding editor of the journal Western European Stages and the author of over two hundred scholarly articles and fifteen books that have been translated into fourteen languages. His most recent books are Ten Thousand Nights: Highlights from 50 Years of Theatre-Going (2017) and Hamlet's Shattered Mirror: Theatre and the Real (2016).
