Choreographing Mexico
Festive Performances and Dancing Histories of a Nation
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
About this book
2023 de la Torre BuenoÂŽ First Book Award, Dance Studies Association
The impact of folkloric dance and performance on Mexican cultural politics and national identity.
The years between 1910 and 1940 were formative for Mexico, with the ouster of Porfirio DĂaz, the subsequent revolution, and the creation of the new state. Amid the upheaval, Mexican dance emerged as a key arena of contestation regarding what it meant to be Mexican. Through an analysis of written, photographic, choreographic, and cinematographic renderings of a festive Mexico, Choreographing Mexico examines how bodies in motion both performed and critiqued the nation.
Manuel Cuellar details the integration of Indigenous and regional dance styles into centennial celebrations, civic festivals, and popular films. Much of the time, this was a top-down affair, with cultural elites seeking to legitimate a hegemonic national character by incorporating traces of indigeneity. Yet dancers also used their moving bodies to challenge the official image of a Mexico full of manly vigor and free from racial and ethnic divisions. At home and abroad, dancers made nuanced articulations of female, Indigenous, Black, and even queer renditions of the nation. Cuellar reminds us of the ongoing political significance of movement and embodied experience, as folklĂłrico maintains an important and still-contested place in Mexican and Mexican American identity today.
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Series Page
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction. Choreographing a Festive Nation: Performance, Dance, and Embodied Histories in Mexico
- 1. Rehearsals of a Cosmopolitan Modernity: The Porfirian Centennial Celebrations of Mexican Independence in 1910
- 2. La Noche Mexicana and the Staging of a Festive Mexico
- 3. Nellie Campobello: The Choreographer of Dancing Histories in Mexico
- 4. Cinematic Renditions of a Dancing Mexico: FolklĂłrico Dance in Mexican Film
- Epilogue. Queering Mexicoâs Archive: Ephemerality, Movement, and Kinesthetic Imaginings
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index