Dance and the Arts in Mexico, 1920-1950

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-ix

   PDF

2. 1920s: The Nation Body

   • Ellie Guerrero

   Pages 1-51

3. 1930s: The Techno-Body

   • Ellie Guerrero

   Pages 53-90

4. 1940s: The Falling Body

   • Ellie Guerrero

   Pages 91-132

5. 1950s: The Hybrid Body

   • Ellie Guerrero

   Pages 133-185

6. Correction to: Dance and the Arts in Mexico, 1920–1950

   • Ellie Guerrero

   Pages E1-E1

7. Back Matter

   Pages 187-210

   PDF

Dance and the Arts in Mexico, 1920–1950 tells the story of the arts explosion that launched at the end of the Mexican revolution, when composers, choreographers, and muralists had produced state-sponsored works in wide public spaces. The book assesses how the “cosmic generation” in Mexico connected the nation-body and the dancer’s body in artistic movements between 1920 and 1950. It first discusses the role of dance in particular, the convergences of composers and visual artists in dance productions, and the allegorical relationship between the dancer's body and the nation-body in state-sponsored performances. The arts were of critical import in times of political and social transition, and the dynamic between the dancer’s body and the national body shifted as the government stance had also shifted. Second, this book examines more deeply the involvement of US artists and patrons in this Mexican arts movement during the period. Given the power imbalance between north and south, these exchanges were vexed. Still, the results for both parties were invaluable. Ultimately, this book argues in favor of the benefits that artists on both sides of the border received from these exchanges.

• Cosmic Generation
• José Vasconcelos
• Carlos Chávez
• Diego Rivera
• Miguel Covarrubias

“This is a solid contribution to the academic field of postrevolutionary culture and art in Mexico. Recently, there has been an explosion of interest in the decades following the end of the Mexican Revolution—scholars have focused on cultural forms in order to emphasize how the postrevolutionary project transformed, and was transformed by, a wide range of artistic and cultural initiatives. This well-researched book rethinks the postrevolutionary canon by using new theoretical tools and incorporating little-known cultural processes.” (Jorge Quintana-Navarrete, Assistant Professor of Latin American Studies, Dartmouth College, USA)

• Department of Spanish, Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA, USA

  Ellie Guerrero

Ellie Guerrero is Professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies and Chair of the Department of Spanish at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania, USA. She is author of Confronting History and Modernity in Mexican Narrative (Palgrave, 2008) and co-editor of Unfolding the City: Women Write the City in Latin America (2007).

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