Abstract
This article examines how and why Cuban modern dancers and their scholars cite several white US dancers as forebearers in their nationalistic, anti-imperialistic, and anti-racist dance tradition. I use contamination to analyze this complicated topic, which threatens to unfairly center US dancers at Cubans' expense or to romantically caricature Cubans defying US imperialism with a nationalist hybrid. Multidirectional, indeterminate contamination moves us away from narratives about US culture as a homogenizing force or a vanquished one. Contamination also importantly connotes stink, given that it is a product of imperialism and capitalism bringing far-flung people into close encounters. US contamination in Cuban modern dance histories, then, pushes attention to the shadowy reaches of the unseemly and incongruous - stylistic impurity, structural racism, historiographic neglect, revolutionary disaffection, and failure. Seeing the regrettable provides a fuller picture of the past, including the often-overlooked reality of shared damage and destructibility.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 26-44 |
Number of pages | 19 |
Journal | Dance Research Journal |
Volume | 54 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Dec 1 2022 |
Keywords
- Anna Sokolow
- Arnaldo Patterson
- Elena Noriega
- Isadora Duncan
- Malpaso Dance Company
- Marianela Boán
- Martha Graham
- Merce Cunningham
- Ramiro Guerra
- técnica Cubana de danza moderna
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Visual Arts and Performing Arts