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UC Riverside UC Riverside Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Danzas Fronterizas: Contemporary Dance at the U.S.-Mexican Borderland Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3v286773 Author Tapia, Minerva Publication Date 2014 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE Danzas Fronterizas: Contemporary Dance at the U.S.-Mexican Borderland A Dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Critical Dance Studies by Minerva Tapia December 2014 Dissertation Committee: Dr. Marta E. Savigliano, Chairperson Dr. Anthea Kraut Dr. Alicia Arrizón Copyright by Minerva Tapia 2014 The Dissertation of Minerva Tapia is approved: Committee Chairperson University of California, Riverside ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation could not have materialized without the support of my family. This project also could not have emerged without the guidance and invaluable insights of my dissertation adviser, Dr. Marta E. Savigliano. Thank you for your eye-opening, challenging questions that made this dissertation advance as well as your courses that inspired me. I would like to give special thanks to Drs. Anthea Kraut and Alicia Arrizón for their support and feedback on this dissertation. Dr. Kraut’s contagious enthusiasm for her students, in particular, inspired both my teaching and my scholarship. This work would have not been possible without the generous support of the following fellowships that gave me the opportunity to pursue a doctoral degree and focus on my research: the UCR Graduate Division Fellowship, the UCR Gluck Fellowship, and the UCR Graduate Research Mentorship Fellowship. Throughout the years attending the dance program, I have had the privilege to share time with professors and colleagues who have both inspired and contributed to my writing. I would like to thank my inspirational professors: Jacqueline Shea Murphy, Priya Srinivasan, and Linda J. Tomko. I would also like to offer my gratitude to my brilliant colleagues. A special thanks for the support, time, and friendship of Hannah Schwadron, Adanna Jones, Gabriel Mendoza-Garcia, and Melissa Templeton. iv Thank you to George and Kate Willis for their friendship, kind words of encouragement, and unconditional support. I also greatly appreciate Marcela Irais Piñon Flores’s help securing my ability to perform interviews in México. I would also like to acknowledge the UCR Graduate Writing Center–especially Emily, Jennifer, and Richard–for their support and valuable feedback throughout this project. I offer my gratitude to the choreographers and dancers whose reflections about their dance work at the borderland contributed to this dissertation. v DEDICATION It is dedicated to the dancers with whom I worked in danzas fronterizas. This dissertation is also dedicated to my family. I would specifically like to dedicate this project to my mother, Margarita Robles, who taught me through both lived examples and her passion that dance practice and dance studies are important. Last, but not least, I dedicate this work to my husband, Juan Cedeño, who encourages me every day. vi ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Danzas Fronterizas: Contemporary Dance at the U.S. Mexican Borderland by Minerva Tapia Doctor of Philosophy, Graduate Program in Critical Dance Studies University of California, Riverside, December 2014 Dr. Marta E. Savigliano, Chairperson My research addresses how embodying the border informs contemporary dance around the Tijuana-San Diego region. I explore what we can learn about choreography, collaboration, nation-states, and citizenship by using the border as both a critical lens and a frame of reference. I have been interested in how (im)migration, racism, smuggling, narcotrafficking, and identity on both sides of the border inform and interfere with binational dance collaborations and choreographies to produce a genre of dance I call danzas fronterizas (border dances). An analysis of danzas fronterizas contributes to border studies from a choreographic perspective, foregrounding the body as a site of politics and economics along the U.S.-Mexican border. This dissertation first studies the influential artistic work of José Limón and Anna Sokolow during the 1930s and 1950s as choreographers who laid the foundation for what later became danzas fronterizas. Chapters two and three analyze today’s Tijuana-San vii Diego dance scene, looking first at the artists´ experiences of border crossing and collaboration, and presenting movement/choreographic analyses of selected danzas fronterizas. I have applied archival, auto-ethnographic, and ethnographic work (participant observation and interviews) as well as movement and choreographic analysis to this research. My project seeks to contemplate scholarly and artistic perspectives from both sides of the border. I interviewed choreographers, dancers, and directors of binational dance festivals; I analyze writings from both Mexican and U.S. sources; and my self-reflections connect my own work as a choreographer of danzas fronterizas to those dancers and choreographers who learn about the border by experiencing it. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION Contemporary Dance at the U.S.-Mexican Borderland…………………………………1 The Border as the Choreographer…………………………………………………….....4 Border-Crossing Dancers and Choreographers……………………………………........9 Frontera Versus Border………………………………………………………………...9 That Border Fence is Ours / Ese borde que veo no es de nosotros…………………....12 Regular Border Crossers……………………………………………………………….14 Dual Nationality at the Borderland…………………………………………………….17 The Tijuana-San Diego Region or the San Diego-Tijuana Region……………………19 Political Aftershocks at the San Ysidro Port of Entry………………………………....22 Examining Border Dances……………………………………………………………..24 CHAPTER 1 Borderless Memories: The Legacy of Sokolow and Limón in U.S.-Mexican Dance…………………………………………………………………………………...27 Anna Sokolow………………………………………………………………………….34 The Beginning of a Career in a New Dance Genre: Modern Dance……………….......35 Sokolow in México…………………………………………………………………….38 Sokolow and the Mexican Dancers…………………………………………………….40 José Limón/José Arcadio Limón Traslaviña……………………………………….......48 México and Limón…………………………………………………………………......58 Sokolow and Limón……………………………………………………………………64 Limón’s Bridge………………………………………………………………………...70 CHAPTER 2 Transborder Choreographies and Tijuana-San Diego Collaborations…………………79 The Economic Factor at the U.S.-Mexico Borderland………………………………...85 Dancers and Choreographers as Regular Border Crossers…………………………….88 Inequalities and Time at the Borderland……………………………………………….93 Dancing the Borderland: Danzas Fronterizas…………………………………...…….94 Danza y Frontera/Dance and Border………………………………………………....107 Tijuana-San Diego Dance Collaborations………………………………………….....110 Long Waits at the Border……………………………………………………………..114 Muestra Coreográfica Binacional/The Binational Dance Showcase………………...119 ix Other Transborder Collaborations………………………………………………….125 CHAPTER 3 Danzas Fronterizas: Border Dance Culture………………………………………..128 On Both Sides: Tijuana-San Diego Dances………………………………………...139 Danzas Fronterizas………………………………………………………………………146 Bodies are Not Borders……………………………………………………………..153 The Choreographic Process of Bodies are Not Borders………………………………156 Crossing into Tijuana or Choosing the Other Side of the Coin…………………….162 A Difficult Theme in Danzas Fronterizas………………………………………………168 Audiences and Danzas Fronterizas…………………………………………………171 CONCLUSION Danzar la Frontera: Performing the Borderland……………………………………174 The Process of my Research………………………………………………………...176 Family at the Borderland…………………………………………………………….179 Changes During my Research: In Proceso (In Process) and La Familia Juárez (The Juárez Family)……………………………………………………………………….181 Future Inquiry: Tolerancia Amnésica or Not Remembering as a Tool of Surviving the Border Crossing………………………………………………………………….......186 Work Cited…………………………………………………………………………..188 x INTRODUCTION: Contemporary Dance at the U.S.-Mexican Borderland As a regular border crosser at the Tijuana-San Diego region and as a choreographer I create danzas fronterizas (border dances). Understanding the production of danzas fronterizas was the initial impulse to start my research. My dissertation examines how border activities and conflicts have been thematized in choreographic works contributing to the establishment of a unique border culture, which I understand as border dance culture/cultura de la danza fronteriza. My research investigates how embodying the border informs the contemporary dance community around the U.S.-Mexico border, specifically in the Tijuana-San Diego region. I ask what we can learn about choreography, about collaboration, about nation- states, and about citizenship, by using the border as a way of looking. I address how the border’s social, economic, and political circumstances inform activities such as binational dance collaborations and choreographies. I argue that issues with (im)migration, racism, smuggling, narcotrafficking, and identity on both sides of the border produce a genre of dance I call danzas fronterizas (border dance). This dissertation examines the critical formation of danzas fronterizas. It first studies the influential artistic work of José Limón and Anna Sokolow during the 1930s and 1950s, whose work laid the groundwork for 1 what would later become danzas fronterizas.1 It then examines today’s dance scene, specifically the 1990s to present