A Revolution in Movement

Dancers, Painters, and the Image of Modern Mexico

K. Mitchell Snow

• Publisher: University Press of Florida
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9780813080079, 9780813066554
• eBook ISBN: 9780813072739
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Art General

Honorable Mention, Latin American Studies Association Mexico Section Best Book in the Humanities

How collaborations between dancers and painters shaped cultural identity in Mexico

A Revolution in Movement is the first book to illuminate how collaborations between dancers and painters shaped Mexico’s postrevolutionary cultural identity. K. Mitchell Snow traces this relationship throughout nearly half a century of developments in Mexican dance—the emulation of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in the 1920s, the adoption of U.S.-style modern dance in the 1940s, and the creation of ballet-inspired folk dance in the 1960s.

Snow describes the appearances in Mexico by Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova and Spanish concert dancer Tortóla Valencia, who helped motivate Mexico to express its own national identity through dance. He discusses the work of muralists and other visual artists in tandem with Mexico’s theatrical dance world, including Diego Rivera’s collaborations with ballet composer Carlos Chávez; Carlos Mérida’s leadership of the National School of Dance; José Clemente Orozco’s involvement in the creation of the Ballet de la Ciudad de México; and Miguel Covarrubias, who led the “golden age” of Mexican modern dance. Snow draws from a rich trove of historical newspaper accounts and other contemporary documents to show how these collaborations produced an image of modern Mexico that would prove popular both locally and internationally and continues to endure today.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Acknowledgments
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1. An Anthropologist Orders a Beer: The Development of Mexican Nationalism
• 2. Mexicanism Russian Style: Roberto Montenegro, Diego Rivera, and the Ballets Russes
• 3. The Precursors of Mexicanism: Anna Pavlova and Tórtola Valencia
• 4. The Philosopher as an Artist Writ Large: José Vasconcelos, Muralism, and Folk Art
• 5. Dancing a Sandunga in English: Carlos Chávez and Diego Rivera in the United States
• 6. A Question of Technique: Carlos Mérida and a Mexican School of Dance
• 7. Competing Modernisms: Anna Sokolow and Waldeen
• 8. Ballets without Ballerinas? José Clemente Orozco and the Ballet de la Ciudad de México
• 9. The Golden Age of Mexican Modern Dance: Miguel Covarrubias and the Academia de la Danza Mexicana
• 10. Dancing beyond the Cactus Curtain: Mexican Theatrical Dance Comes of Age
• Epilogue: Mexican and Universal
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Author