Ciencia Ergo Sum ISSN: 1405-0269 [email protected] Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México México

Jaeck Marie, Lois The Body as Revolutionary Text: The Dance as Protest Literature in Latin America Ciencia Ergo Sum, vol. 10, núm. 1, marzo, 2003 Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México Toluca, México

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Lois Marie Jaeck*

Recepción: junio 10 de 2002 Aceptación: septiembre 26 de 2002 El cuerpo como texto: el baile como Abstract. Paul Valéry, Antonin Artaud, * This paper was presented at the CALACS Congress. February 22-25, 2001. Antigua, literatura de protesta en Latinoamérica Isadora Duncan, James Collingwood and Guatemala. Resumen. Paul Valéry, Antonin Artaud, Isadora Frank Kermode all proposed that dance Department of Languages and Linguistics, Duncan y Frank Kermode sugirieron que los movements may function as a universal University of Saskatchewan. Saskatoon, Canada and Member of the Board of Directors (2000, movimientos de un baile pueden funcionar human language transcending the limitations 2001) of Dance Saskatchewan Inc. Saskatoon, como un lenguaje universal que supera las of the written or spoken word. If dance Canada. Tel: (306) 664-3511. limitaciones de la palabra escrita o dicha. Si el Email: [email protected] really does express and speak to the universal I would like to thank María Teresa Colombani, baile verdaderamente expresa los sentimientos soul inherent in humanity, it follows that Librarian/Resource Technician of the Dance del alma universal, que es parte integrante del dance is a powerful communicating medium Saskatchewan Resource Center, for her assis- tance in helping me locate video footage of ser humano, entonces el baile es un medio that can break down barriers, unite diverse Isadora Duncan, Loie Fuller, and dancers perfor- muy poderoso de comunicación que puede groups and promote social change. This ming the rhumba, merengue, samba and tango, derribar muros y fronteras, unir grupos paper argues that some class and racial to accompany this paper during my oral presen- tation at the CALACS Congress in Antigua, diversos de la humanidad y promover cambios struggles in Latin America have consciously Guatemala. sociales. Este artículo propone que algunas utilized the communicative power of dance luchas étnicas y de clases sociales en to further their goals: the rhumba in Cuba, Latinoamérica han utilizado conscientemente the merengue in the Dominican Repulbic, el poder comunicativo del baile para realizar the samba in Brazil, the tango in Argentina, sus propósitos: la rumba en Cuba, el merengue and Aztec dance in contemporary Mexico and en la República Dominicana, la samba en Brasil, the Southern United States. el tango en Argentina y el baile azteca en Key words: dance, protest literature, México y el sur de los Estados Unidos. rhumba, merengue, samba, tango, aztec dance. Palabras clave: baile, literatura de protesta, rumba, tango, samba, merengue, baile azteca.

ance is a language of the body English philosopher R. G. Collingwood French theorist and poet Paul Valéry whose signified concepts, like suggested that “every kind of language compared the physical movements of Dthose of poetry and revo- is a specialized form of bodily gesture a dancer to a poetic image forged in lution, frequently elude expression and in this sense it may be said that words: “[…] un homme est penseur through conventional linguistic forms. dance is the mother of all languages” comme il est danseur, usant son esprit In the early twentieth century, the (Collingwood, 1938). In his Cahiers, the somme celui-ci de ses muscles et ses

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the Argentinian tango and the Valéry, Artaud, Duncan, Collingwood and Kermode all proposed Mexican/Chicano twentieth century that dance movements may function as a universal human language revival of aztec dance as examples of

transcending the limitations of the written or spoken word. dance forms whose evolution and popularity has been blatently linked to social movements: the Cuban Re- volution, the Dominican Republic’s nerfs” (1960: 334); just as the English literary critic Frank drive for self-definition in the post-Trujillo era, the Afro- Kermode, proposed that dance is “the obscure primitive Brazilian struggle for racial equality, the Argentine working ground from which modern poets draw strength for their class immigrants’ struggle for social acceptance in the early archaic art” (1976: 47). Dreaming of a “physical language” twentieth century, and Mexican American immigrant (Artaud, 1978) that would transcend the limitations of words workers’ struggle for social recognition, equality and justice. with pre-determined significations, the French playwright and Certainly Latin America is not the only place in the world philospher Antonin Artaud sought a “concrete language” (ibid.) where dance is linked to social movements; neither are the that would allow for the expression of “la Parole devant les above-mentioned dances the only examples of that mots” (the Word before words, Artaud, 1978). Although phenomenon. The utilization of dance as a ‘physical’ langua- Artaud never realized his dream through the form of avant- ge is a human system of communication that very likely garde expression he attempted “le Theatre de la Cruaté”, his characterizes all cultures past, present and future. American contemporary, dancer Isadora Duncan, succeeded Yvonne Daniel (1995) presents a very comprehensive in transposing her art to the level of social cultural revolution analysis of the ways that Fidel Castro’s regime has used the and the embodiment of the poetic spirit of humanity. As if rhumba to define, embody, and assert images of national in response to all of the above-mentioned theorists, Isadora and international identity. She sees rhumba signifying an declared that “I use my body as my medium, just as the ideal which the Revolution embodied: “equality with the writer uses his words[...]” (Duncan, 1981). working masses and an identity with its Afro-Latin heritage”: Valéry, Artaud, Duncan, Collingwood and Kermode all [...] rhumba has long been acquainted with workers, beginning proposed that dance movements may function as a universal with the slave, free black, mulatto and white workers of the human language transcending the limitations of the written nineteenth century. Although rhumba was considered African, or spoken word. If dance really does express and speak to Afro-Cuban, ‘baja cultura’ (low culture), obscene, or too sexual the universal soul inherent in humanity, it follows that dance by some Cubans before the Revolution, it has been aligned with is a powerful communicating medium that can break down notions of dignity, recognition, equality and inspiration since then. barriers, unite diverse groups and promote social change. In striving for social equality, the government has attempted to Robert Hodge and G. Kress (1979) proposed a theory of unify elements of the historically hierarchical system. Rhumba language “whose aim was to provide an illuminating account openly reveals the Revolution’s legal reality of nondiscrimination of verbal language as a social phenomenon”. In their later contrasted with historical cultural biases that the emphasized work, in 1988, they recognize the limitations of verbal common ancestry with blacks and denigrated equal association language and see “social structures and processes, messages between Cubans of African and non-African descent (see Martinez- and meanings as the proper standpoint from which to Alier, 1974: 1-20, 71-75; noted by Daniel, 1995: 117). attempt the analysis of meaning systems”. They stress that meaning resides so strongly in visual, aural, behavioural and If Daniel’s analysis of the revolutionary significance of other codes that “a concentration on words alone is not rhumba does indeed reflect Cuban lived reality, then I con- enough”; that “meaning is produced and reproduced under tend that the rhumba, as a popular dance form, functions specific social conditions, through specific material forms as a ‘physical’ language expressing Cuba’s ‘official message’ and agencies”. Keeping their premise in mind, I will attempt of social and racial equality. to illustrate that some class and racial struggles in Latin In Music and Black Ethnicity in the Dominican Republic (1994), America have consciously utilized the social codes of dan- Martha Ellen Davis extends the field of dance as social ce forms (their historical roots, movements, even the communication to the socio-historical significance of the ins- instruments playing the music to which the dance is per- truments producing dance music. In the case of the traditional formed) to further their goals. I will briefly present the Cuban merengue ensemble in the Dominican Republic, she sees its rhumba, the Dominican merengue, the Brazilian samba, components as representative of the hybrid nature of Domi-

44 JAECK, L. THE BODY AS REVOLUTIONARY TEXT... C IENCIAS HUMANAS Y DE LA CONDUCTA nican culture: the sounds of the Hohner button accordion country that tried to deny its African parentage for quite (evokative of European influence) blend with the drum, gourd some, it is significant that merengue –a music and dance scraper and marimba that have evolved from African cultu- representing a merger of African rhythms with the Hispanic ral roots. Deborah P. Hernández (1991: 116) asserts that folkloric dance tradition– should now be “symbolic of Dominican national identity” (Davis, 1994). In view of [...] asking the question ‘where did merengue come from?’ was Dominicans’ acknowledgement of the racial merger that just another way of asking ‘where did we Dominicans come constitutes their national identity, I feel that it is significant from, and who are we?’ Responding to the question forced cultu- that the merengue is danced in a waltz-like position with ral observers of all socio-political persuasions to consider and partners stepping to the side and even making turns acknowledge –or to reject– the country’s African heritage. individually, but never letting go of the partner. The Enciclopedia Dominicana (1976) suggests that, while me- Samba –a Brazilian dance and musical genre with rengue was always very popular among the masses, the higher profoundly African roots– also has come to symbolize Afro- echelons of society did not accept merengue for a long time, Brazilians’ongoing fight for racial equality. Ironically, the because it was related to African music. millions of foreign tourists witnessing Rio de Janeiro’s annual The development of commercial ballroom-style meren- Carnival parade most probably see the richly costumed gue was promoted by the dictator Trujillo, who wanted the dancers as an expression of racial harmony. dance to be recognized as the “artistic symbol External appearance is not necessarily internal of Dominican identity” (Davis, 1994). He reality, even when dance movements are the founded municipal bands and public music signifiers, however. Alison Raphael’s article schools in the 1940’s and 50’s, to develop From Popular Culture to Microenterprise: The education, the arts, and industry. Davis obser- History of the Brazilian Samba Schools (1990), ves that, prior to Trujillo, the Dominican contends that, in the 1970’s, the Brazilian working classes previously had invoked the Carnival was in danger of losing its unifying power of the merengue when threate- authenticity as a result of its appropriation ned by outside forces. She quotes Jorge Ber- by business enterprises. The Samba Schools nanda (1982) who suggests that Dominicans became “a convenient vehicle through which showed a nationalistic preference for the me- the larger society […] co-opted and under- rengue over foreign genres in dance halls mined a genuine manifestation of popular during the first U.S. occupation in 1916-22. culture” (ibid.: 73). Raphael documents the Davis alludes to the accelerated tempo of emergence of the samba from the slums of commercial merengue music in the 1970’s, Rio de Janeiro in the very early 1900’s, positing that made it more attractive to urban youth its true origins in the rhythmic drumbeats that seduced by North American “rock and roll’ traditionally accompanied African religious and Puerto Rico salsa. ceremonies brought to Brazil by African slaves. In La lucha sonora: Dominican Popular Music By virtue of its African roots, the samba in the post-Trujillo Era (1991), Deborah P. became “the chief social mobilizer within Rio’s Hernández identifies the key players and sides Afro-Brazilian community” (ibid.). in the Dominican ‘sonic struggle’. Following the assassination The apparent appropriation of the Carnival by business of Trujillo in 1961, public debates arose concerning the interests in the seventies to the nineties represented, in past and future configuration of the country’s national some aspects, a regression to the ‘original’ form of the identity, “particularly as it was expressed by… the meren- Carnival in the very early years of the twentieth century. gue” (ibid.: 105). These dialogues culminated in two In 1928, a group of Black and Mulatto carnival goers conferences on merengue held in Santo Domingo: The Origin created the first Samba School and entered their parade and Evolution of the Merengue (1976) and Encounter with Me- in the Carnival. Raphael emphasizes that this was a rengue (1978). Sociologist Dagoberto Tejeda “insisted on the newsworthy event because, until then, the city’s white elite importance of merengue’s African roots” (ibid.), which dominated the parade. Established black working class Hernández interprets as “clearly an attempt to force those neighborhoods participated, but blacks from the hillside concerned with the country’s national and cultural identity slums and suburbs were not included. Instead, they formed to squarely face the issue of race and racism” (ibid.). In a ‘blocos de sujos’ or ‘ragamuffin bands’ and went into the

CIENCIA ergo sum, Vol. 10-1, marzo-junio 2003 45 C IENCIAS HUMANAS Y DE LA CONDUCTA streets to sing and dance the samba in an informal fashion. in Rio’s working class suburbs, in response to the commercia- After the first Samba School’s successful launch, many lization and corruption of the city’s samba schools and or- ‘blocos’ converted themselves to Samba Schools. For the ganized carnival parade groups. This grassroots samba move- next thirty years (1928-58), the Carnival truly was a symbol ment consequently represented the merger of dance signi- of racial harmony and co-operation. In the mid-seventies, fiers with written text –cultural resistance being implicit in Raphael conducted an interview with three elderly ‘sam- pagode samba lyrics. Galinsky notes that bistas’ who told her that, in the early years of the Samba ‘Eu Não Falo Gringo’ (I Don’t Speak Gringo), written by João Schools, “it was our own thing. People made the greatest Nogueira and Nei Lopes and performed by Nogueira (Acervo sacrifices –they even went hungry– in order to parade on Especial BMG 109.0311) asserts both musically and lyrically a Carnival Day” (ibid.); that “things were better then. People strong Afro-Brazilian, nationalist stance when confronted with were more united, more united” (ibid.). The third told her the imposition of cultural influence from the United States: ‘I that “we played, we had fun. I don’t think that they have don’t speak gringo/I only speak Brazilian […] (ibid.: 138). as much fun as we used to”(ibid.). What caused the change? After evolving into a mani- Black carnival groups in Salvador da Bahia soon became, festation of social harmony in the 30’s and 40’s, the in the words of Larry N. Crook (1993: 90), “the most Carnival, by the mid 50’s, regressed back to its former dynamic and socially dedicated cultural organizations in pattern of domination by the city’s ‘elite’. Samba Schools Brazil’s black consciousness movement”. The ‘bloco afro’ began contracting professional artists in order to make emerged as a new type of carnival association: “[…] the their entries conform to “the aesthetic standards of Rio’s creation of an Afrocentric aesthetic movement involving middle and upper classes” (Raphael, 1990). After the ca- dance, music, poetry, visual designs, costuming, and poetics pital of Brazil was moved from Rio to Brazilia in 1960, around a variety of African themes […] a reinvention of Africa in Bahia” (ibid.: 98). In 1983, ‘Olodum’ (one of the The utilization of dance as a ‘physical’ language prominent “bloco afro” groups) began “focusing its yearly themes on socialist movements in Africa and diaspora” (ibid.: is a human system of communication that 100). The group also began mixing the samba beat with very likely characterizes all cultures salsa, merengue, reggae, and candomblé rhythms. A new past, present and future. form of music and dance ‘samba-reggae’ was born; and Olodum emerged as a force for social change. Olodum has maintained a newly renovated cultural center in the middle the government saw the Carnival as a major source of of Salvador, where classes in theatre, dance, music and revenue for Rio and thus began putting pressure on the foreign languages are offered. Crook states that the effect Samba Schools to create bigger and better spectacles for of ‘Olodum’ and the ‘bloco afro’ movement now is seen the tourist trade. The Schools became efficiently run throughout Brazil, with dozens of ‘blocos afros’ popping businesses that catered primarily to the white middle class up in the poorest neighbor-hoods of cities like Recife, Sao for financial support and new ideas (ibid.). Raphael Paolo and Rio de Janeiro. These community based concludes with the assertion that “instead of representing organizations provide alternatives to gang life and other a spontaneous, indigenous and authentic form of popular marginal activities so chronic among Brazil’s street youth. culture, the Samba Schools, by the late 1970’s, had become The ‘samba reggae’ style of the ‘blocos afros’ now is firmly profit-seeking micro enterprises rendering services by embedded within the social and political activism practiced contract to the city’s tourism agency” (ibid.). Keeping in by these organizations. Crook quotes Joao Jorge, a former mind our parallel between dance forms and signified president of Olodum, who said that, “when these groups concepts, we may speculate that the samba became an do music, they also do politics”(ibid.). It is already evident exhausted ‘metaphor’ whose original message of harmony that the musical politics of the ‘blocos afro’ have opened was usurped by the mask of moneymaker. doors to increased black participation in politics in Brazil – The soul of samba, as music and dance, eluded and the gate to socio-economic power and the incarnation of transcended those externally imposed signified concepts. In the signified concept which samba signifies as physical text. the 1980’s, the ‘pagode’ samba movement emerged as a Just as the rhumba, the merengue, and the samba were turning point toward authenticity. Philip Galinsky (1996) born from the merger of African rhythms with European describes how the movement generated itself spontaneously music and dance, so the tango was engendered from a simi-

46 JAECK, L. THE BODY AS REVOLUTIONARY TEXT... C IENCIAS HUMANAS Y DE LA CONDUCTA lar clash of cultures in Argentina. Carlos Ibarguren (1963: rets and ballrooms of Paris, London 32) described the tango as “un producto ilegítimo [….] pro- and New York: ducto híbrido o mestizo nacido en los arrabales y consisten- By the 1920’s, it had become clear te en una mezcla de habanera tropical y de milonga falsifi- that the sin of tango was related to cada”. Marta E. Savigliano (1995) suggests that the tango its racial/class origins rather than expresses and reproduces “exiles and alterity”: to its erotic content[…] Tango in its [...] The history of tango is a story of encounters between those new bourgeois version was re who should never have met or between those who, having met, addressed to the world market, will remain forever disencountered. Brewing resentment, it is a including, ironically, those Third stubborn story of impossible but fatal encounters[...] The tango World nations where it originated. is both a product and a promoter of these hybrid events. Black It became an ‘exotic’ good in the and white, rich and poor, men and women, colonizer and political economy of Passion: colonized each is brought much too close to the other; the tango appropriation, accumulation, mar- embrace is dangerously tight (ibid.: XIV-XV). keting, packaging, commerciali- zation, distribution, and consumption of the wealth of exotic Savigliano suggests that “black men and women probably feelings, that is, of the Passion of the Other/Otra (Savigliano, initiated the first tango steps in the Rio de la Plata”, even 1995: 12). though the importance of black participation in the creation of rioplatense culture has “frequently been neglected or even Foreshadowing the merger of linguistic and physical erased”. She contends that “the flirtacious closeness of the signifiers that would characterize the pagode samba movement first black tango dancers” was replaced with the more rigid in Brazil in the 1980’s, the lyrics of tango songs reflected the form of the dance in the early twentieth century, as the tension tension of body movements unconsciously protesting against between succeeding waves of European immigrants, as well alienation, poverty and discrimination. Just as the samba lyrics as rural and urban environments, increased. of João Nogueira and Nei Lopes denounced the imposition None of the tensions were resolved and the European of cultural influences from the United States, so the tango immigrants, a new army of laborers, had already arrived. lyrics of Celedonio Estaban Flores in the early part of the No time for healing. More exiles, more distress, and again, twentieth century frequently pleaded for social justice and few women. How tight could tango’s embrace get? The stiff the betterment of the working classes: torsos of the black dances became stiffer; the swaying hips Sus pibes no lloran por llorar (‘quebradas’) and the sharp interruptions of the dancing ni piden masitas ni dulces. !Señor! marches (‘cortes’) lost their joyful fluidity and became gra- Sus pibes se mueren de frío ve, and so did the faces, concentrated in displaying filigrees y lloran hambrientos de pan of footwork (‘figuras’) for an attentive audience of ‘par- (His kids don’t cry for crying sake das’ and ‘chinas’; themselves escaped from domestic service nor do they ask for cookies or cake, no sir! to become near-prostitutes. His kids are dying of cold Whose embrace was the tango embrace? Tango’s cho- and cry of bellies aching for bread) reography emerged out of mutual admiration and scornful (Pan [Bread], Flores, 1981: 24) distain among the different races, classes and ethnicities; While Flores’s tango lyrics documented the social lumped together in the city. inequalities of his era, the tango as a dance form represented Donald S. Castro (1990) also emphasizes that the evolution an escape from that harsh reality for the Argentine working of the tango as a popular dance and musical genre was classes, many of whom were recent immigrants. The lyrics synonymous with racial and class tensions: “[…] the tango of other tango songs such as Viejo Smoking by Flores, La when dominated by racially mixed creoles was rejected by ultima copa by Juan A. Caruso (Castro, 1990: 182) and the elite as being ‘barbaric’. It was only accepted as being Lunes by Gobello depict factory workers and longshoremen civilized when “whitened” through re-importation from replacing “bib-overalls with a store bought suit” (ibid.) for a Europe in the period just prior to World War I” (ibid.: 92). few hours on the weekend, prior to returning to their working Savigliano affirms that the tango was polished and accepted class weekday realities. by the wealthy and powerful as it made its way from the As a physical language, movements of the tango continued slums and brothels of South American harbors to the caba- to evolve; to reflect the tense physical realities of alienation

CIENCIA ergo sum, Vol. 10-1, marzo-junio 2003 47 C IENCIAS HUMANAS Y DE LA CONDUCTA and competition that was prevalent in the social system. Cas- All previously mentioned Latin American dance forms tro (1990) suggests that the tango pitted three societal elements –the rhumba, the merengue, the samba and the tango– have against each other in a battle for cultural survival: the urban two common factors. Firstly, they were born from the forced creole, the recent immigrant and members of the upper class: social merger of African and European rhythms and dance movements –from the trauma of Black slavery, European Forced to compete with the immigrant for jobs, women, so- colonization and the uprooting and immigration of both cial status in a system that seemed to favour only the foreigner, racial groups. Secondly, as these dance signifiers evolved, the urban creole took out his frustration and bitterness against they came to represent a struggle for social and racial equality the immigrant and the elite in a new ‘duello criollo’, the tango. in Latin American terms. In this ‘duello’, the object was to show up the immigrant or In Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Brazil, the warm, the upper class ‘swell’ as well. Through the development of a hypnotic rhythms of the rhumba, the samba and the meren- complicated footwork and body movements (‘el corte’ and gue speak of warm, vibrant, ‘earthy’ cultural roots bursting ‘tango con quebrada’), the tango as a dance was not easily done with vitality. If our human family originated in Africa, then by the novice. The poor immigrant or the swell who tried to these Afro-Latino dance signifiers are conducting us back to emulate the ‘creole compadrito’ was made the object of ridicule our primordial roots; to community, harmony, co-operation. […] The immigrant, for his part, participated in this ‘duello While dancers of the Argentine tango move with a hauntingly criollo’ to show his equality and his desperation to become beautiful, sophisticated grace, their closeness paradoxically something other than a ‘tano’ (Italian) or a ‘gringo’ appears dispassionate –a criticism also levied at the Western (foreigner)[…] The upper class ‘swells’ also participated in this European/North American technological, materialistic ‘duello’. They sought to prove their masculinity seeking high societies that were responsible for granting the tango adventure through slumming[…] The tango was not ‘their’ ‘respectability’. Nevertheless, in spite of the controlled tension dance, but instead an adventure. It was an adventure into the that is inherent in the tango, an unspeakable emotion –that is ‘low life’ and a flirtation with danger (Castro, 1990: 122-24). neither anxiety nor isolation– transcends the conflict engen- As both mirror and signifier of the harsh social reality of dered by warring signifiers: the desire to merge oneself with Argentina in the early twentieth century, the tango had the other, that underlies all profound human communication. transformed itself into an intensely physical dance that In 2001-02, the partnership of dance and social revolution evoked the unspeakable –wounds in the subconscious mind. in Latin America is most evident in the recent resurgence of Ernesto Santos Discépolo summed up the tango as “un Pre-Columbian dance. An internet website dedicated to Aztec pensamiento triste que se puede bailar” (Castro, 1990), while Dancing ([email protected]) contends that the Ramón Gómez de la Serna described the tango almost as “the sacred dances of the Mexica hold a very special position an irritant that keeps old wounds open, that tears them in the Yogic practices of the world”, and extends an invitation: open until they bleed (ibid.). “if you’d like to learn the Aztec sacred dances, go to the In 2002, most of us regard the tango as an international Zócalo in Mexico City Tenochtitlan on any evening. There dance form evoking grace, urban sophistication and egotism. are many people there who would be very happy to teach The smooth, contrived moves of ballroom style tango speak you” (http://dayofdestiny.com/AztecDance.html). The more of Northern European chiseled emotions than they do website lists Aztec Dance groups in Mexico, the United States of the dance’s not so distant African origins. The relaxed, and Argentina. Mariángela Rodriguez (1999) describes a fluid African movements evoking the natural rhythms of “Cinco de Mayo” celebration at East Los Angeles College the earth are almost obliterated in the visual acuity of preci- (apparently the university with the largest number of Mexican sely drawn diagrams traced by disciplined high heeled feet, American students in Los Angeles, where the Aztec Dancers symbolically cold facial expressions and a controlling male/ Xochi Pilli and a Chicano rap group –the Aztec Underground– female embrace that denounces the possibility of true intimacy. are the principal entertainers. While the rap group’s name If the ballroom style tango of 2002 has a social message, it appeals to “the pre-Hispanic past to define its nationality” declares coldly that Buenos Aires succeeded in becoming the (Rodriguez, 1999), the Aztec dancers also “condense dominant Paris of the New World; that Faustino Sarmiento’s late political and religious symbols” (ibid.) relevant to Chicanos: nineteenth century aspirations to make Argentina a vibrant, “[…] the body is an instrument of battle with which order is industrialized, sophisticated metropolis in the style of Northern restored amid chaos. The dancers are warriors and their Europe were realized, even though he had to obliterate the musical instruments are their weapons; they fight while dan- heritage of aboriginal and black cultural groups to do it. cing and through prayer, religious harmony is established”

48 JAECK, L. THE BODY AS REVOLUTIONARY TEXT... C IENCIAS HUMANAS Y DE LA CONDUCTA

(ibid.). ‘Cinco de Mayo’ –a minor Me- ever made” (http://www.soton.ac.uk/ xican holiday– has great significance for In 2001-02, the partnership ~oms/lambada.html), the latter movie Chicanos because the hero of the battle clearly utilizes the power of dance to fought on May 5, 1862 was a Texan – of dance and social revolution promote cultural platforms, to inform Ignacio Zaragoza. The ‘Aztec’ warrior- in Latin America is most evident about social issues, and to promote dancers’ presence at a Chicano ‘Cinco in the recent resurgence of solidarity through a physical language that de Mayo’ celebration assumes a contem- speaks to the heart and the soul. porary revolutionary significance, when Pre-Columbian dance. The Argentine protagonist of Julio seen in the light of the Aztec Under- Cortazar’s novel Rayuela (1967) ground’s rap lyrics speaking of “re- frequently denounced the entire history appropriating the U.S. Southwest, a te- of Western European thought for its rritory that Mexico lost in the war of 1848” (ibid.). In a so- binary reasoning that disrupts itself with impassible brick walls cio-historical context, these words assume even greater sig- of its own construction. Like his protagonist Oliveira and nificance when we remember that the U.S. Southwest possibly like the previously mentioned French theorist Antonin Artaud, was the site of the mythical kingdom of Aztlán –the Aztec’s Cortazar frequently denounced conventional language for home before sweeping down from the North to conquer its inability to express the essential nature of the world. It is Mexico three centuries before the arrival of the Spanish. As sad that Cortazar’s hero Oliveira, from the land of the ‘tan- signifiers, the dancers’ movements and the rap singers’ oral go’, never learned to dance. Instead, he went mad bumping text cease being concrete phenomena as their merging his head against five thousand years of Western European movements of signification give rise to a futuristic mythical syllogisms and apparently threw himself out of the window vision rooted in historical suffering and nurtured by hope. in a last desperate attempt to reach the ‘center’ –the state of Like the dancers of the rhumba, the samba and the me- ‘analagous consciousness’ that eluded language. Could Oliveira rengue (many of whom are mulatto), the Chicanos (pre- have found the ‘analagous consciousness’ he so desperately dominantly mestizo) participating in the celebration described sought if he had dared to dance the tango? Let us dare to above are rejecting Northern European dance rhythms in dream. While the African rhythms that gave birth to the tan- favor of a more ancient style rooted in the earth, whose go were suppressed and confined as the dance form was movements celebrate the rhythms of the universe. ‘refined’ by Western Europeans, those roots nevertheless As the world evolves in the twenty-first century to its inevi- sustained the vital passion inherent in the dance, because table future as a global village, with international commu- they sprang from and spoke to the collective soul of humanity. nication facilitated by the internet, satellite television and other The dance rhythms of the rhumba, the merengue and the forms of mass media, it is significant that the dance rhythms samba similarly lead us back to Eden, back to our primordial of Africa and Latin America are sweeping the world in African roots, back to dancing (as a human family) to the popularity, as if heralding a new cultural revolution. Ironically, ‘World Beat’. This physical expression of a human conscious- North American mass media –so frequently condemned for ness transcending the boundaries of conventional represen- imposing its own culture on the world– is now propagating tation finds its common essence in the signified concept of Latino culture in the form of internationally renowned po- Isadora Duncan’s revolutionary dance, in Antonin Artaud’s pular singing artists, such as Enrique Iglesias, Ricky Martin, dream of a physical language, in contemporary performances Jennifer López, to name only three. Since the cultural clash of sacred Aztec and other aboriginal dances. depicted so eloquently in ‘West Side Story’, the North American movie industry has produced a slow but steady stream of movies celebrating struggling Latino working class immigrants who make it ‘big’ through their dedication to sensual, provocative, ‘earthy’ dance styles: Dirty Dancing, Staying Alive, Bibliografía Flashdance, and The Forbidden Dance –a 1990’s movie that celebrates a fictitious Brazilian rainforest princess coming to Artaud, A. (1978). “La mise en scene et la metaphysique”, Le Theatre et son the United States to dance the lambada in a competition, in order to save the rainforest and its inhabitants from further Double. Editions Gallimard, Paris. exploitation. Although billed by internet movie critic Oren Castro, D. S. (1990). The Argentine Tango as Social History, 1880-1995: The Soul of Stone as “probably ranking […] as one of the worst films the People. Mellen Research University Press, San Francisco.

CIENCIA ergo sum, Vol. 10-1, marzo-junio 2003 49 C IENCIAS HUMANAS Y DE LA CONDUCTA

Collingwood, R.G. (1938). The Principles of Art. América Latina, Buenos Aires. ian Samba Schools”, Latin American Music Re- Clarendon Press, Oxford. Galinsky, P. (1996). “Co-option, Cultural Resis- view, Vol. 11, No. 1, June. Cortazar, J. (1967). Rayuela. Editorial Sudamericana, tance, and Afro-Brazillian Identity: a History Rodriguez, M. (1999). “Aztlán: A Primordial Imag- Buenos Aires. of the Pagode Samba Movement in Rio de ined Community”, Voices of Mexico, Vol. 47, Crook, L. N. (1993). “Black Consciousness, Samba Janeiro”, Latin American Music Review, Vol. 17, April-June, pp. 74-77. Reggae, and the Re-Africanization of Bahian No. 2, Fall/Winter. Savigliano, M. E. (1995). Tango and the Political Carnival Music in Brazil”, The World of Music, Hernández, D. P. (1991). “‘La lucha sonora’: Do- Economy of Passion. Boulder, Oxford: Westview Vol. 35, No. 2. minican Popular Music in the post-Trujillo Press, San Francisco. Daniel, Y. (1995). Rhumba: Dance and Social Change Era”, Latin American Review, Vol. 12, No. 2, Dec. Valéry, P. (1960). Cahiers. Ed. J. Robinson. in Contemporary Cuba. Indiana University Press, Hodge, R. and G. Kress Gallimard, Paris. Bloomington and Indianapolis. ______(1988). Social Semiotics. Ithaca. Cornell Uni- Davis, M. E. (1994). “Music and Black Ethnicity versity Press, New York. Internet in the Dominican Republic”, Music and ______(1979). Language as Ideology. Routledge and sites Consulted: Black Ehtnicity: The Caribbean and South Kegan Paul, London. America. Ed. Béhague, Gerard H. New Ibarguren, C. (1963). Tango: Canción de Buenos Aires. http://www.mindspring.com/~adiascar/

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Duncan, I. (1981). Isadora Speaks. Edited and Intro- XX. Universidad Autónoma de Santo http://www.soton.ac.uk/~oms/lambada.html duced by Rosemont, Franklin. City Lights Domingo, Santo Domingo. “The Lambada – The Forbidden Dance”, Books, San Francisco. Kermode, F. (1976). “Poet and Dancer before submitted by Oren Stone, [email protected], Enciclopedia Dominicana (1976). Primera Diaghilev”, Salmagundi, Nos. 33-34, Spring- 17th August, 1998. Edición Summer. http://dayofdestiny.com/AztecDance.html “Az- Flores, C. E. (1981). “Pan”, Tangos, antología, Vol Raphael, A. (1990). “From Popular Culture to tec Dancing”, Trans-Hyperborean Institute of II. Ed. Vilariño, Idea. Centro Editor de Microenterprise: The History of the Brazil- Science, Sausalito, California, 1998, 1999, 2000.

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