Juan Suárez Ontaneda

Juan Suárez Ontaneda is Assistant Professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies at Xavier University in Cincinnati. He examines the production of racialized discourses through performances in Brazil, Colombia, and Peru during the second half of the twentieth-century. In particular, his work focuses on Abdias do Nascimento’s experimental theater, Nicomedes Santa Cruz’s radio broadcastings, Victoria Santa Cruz’s choreographies, Delia Zapata Olivella’s dance manuals, and Manuel Zapata Olivella’s street theater. In doing so, his research underscores how their performances created a vocabulary to denounce everyday experiences of racism and discrimination in the Latin America. In May 2020, Juan obtained his Ph.D. in Latin American Literatures and Cultures at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, as well as a Graduate Minor in Latina/o Studies.