Making the Transnational Rumba Body

• In Event: Transnational Dance and Identity in the Americas

Abstract

From 1927 the world woke up to Rumba and the Afro Cuban legacy. Following the commercial blockbuster of “ The Peanut Vendor”, performers around the world take on the enactment of Cuban-ness. Through an archeological recuperation of the histories of Rene Rivero and Ramona Ajon, the single Afro Cuban dance couple participant of the process, and comparing their choreographies to Latin American and international stars I place Rumba craze as vortex of the transnational performance and as broker of Afro and Latino transnational images. My analysis follows the movement of sacred dance patterns into transnational choreography. This research explores the visual economy of consumerism, and how this process watered down, hyper-visualized, or conveniently erased darker bodies, from 1930’s to the present.

Author

• Yesenia Fernandez Selier, NYU