Event Title
Dancing the Orishas: Exporting a Constructed Form of Popular Culture from Havana to Arcata
Location
Panel 08: Kearney 308
Start Date
27-10-2012 8:30 AM
End Date
27-10-2012 10:00 AM
Description
“Dancing the Orishas: Exporting a Constructed Form of Popular Culture from Havana to Arcata”
The staged sacred and social dances of the Afro-Cuban community were chosen to represent the new “revolutionary identity” of Cuba. Maya J. Berry writes about this phenomenon in her essay, “From ‘Ritual’ to ‘Repertory’: Dancing to the Time of the Nation” in the Afro-Hispanic Review. This paper builds on that work.
First, it defines a bodily archives a performed identity. Constructed by the Conjunto Folklorico Nacional de Cuba (CFN), Compania Raices Profundas, Cutumba and Ballet Folklorico Afro-Cubano, this archives created the revolutionary identity. Through these dance companies' methods of “folklorization,” a “classical-folkore” repertory and training was created.
Second, this paper seeks to understand the ways this “classical-folklore” has been exported from Cuba and influenced the Diaspora dance movement in the United States. An example of its export takes place in the “Explorations in Afro-Cuban Drum and Dance” workshop which takes place in Arcata, California perpetuates the classical Afro-Cuban training outside of Cuba and is central to this study of Popular dance.
Additional Files
Dancing the Orishas: Exporting a Constructed Form of Popular Culture from Havana to Arcata
Panel 08: Kearney 308
“Dancing the Orishas: Exporting a Constructed Form of Popular Culture from Havana to Arcata”
The staged sacred and social dances of the Afro-Cuban community were chosen to represent the new “revolutionary identity” of Cuba. Maya J. Berry writes about this phenomenon in her essay, “From ‘Ritual’ to ‘Repertory’: Dancing to the Time of the Nation” in the Afro-Hispanic Review. This paper builds on that work.
First, it defines a bodily archives a performed identity. Constructed by the Conjunto Folklorico Nacional de Cuba (CFN), Compania Raices Profundas, Cutumba and Ballet Folklorico Afro-Cubano, this archives created the revolutionary identity. Through these dance companies' methods of “folklorization,” a “classical-folkore” repertory and training was created.
Second, this paper seeks to understand the ways this “classical-folklore” has been exported from Cuba and influenced the Diaspora dance movement in the United States. An example of its export takes place in the “Explorations in Afro-Cuban Drum and Dance” workshop which takes place in Arcata, California perpetuates the classical Afro-Cuban training outside of Cuba and is central to this study of Popular dance.