Publications
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Flamenco on the Global Stage: Historical, Critical and Theoretical Perspectives Illustrated Edition
The language of the body is central to the study of flamenco. From the records of the Inquisition, to 16th century literature, to European travel diaries, the Spanish dancer beguiles and fascinates. The word flamenco evokes the image of a sensuous and rebellious woman--the bailaora --whose movements seduce the audience, only to reject their attention with a stomp of defiance. The dancer's body is an agent of ideological resistance, conveying a conflicting desire for subjectivity and autonomy and implying deeply held ideas about history, national identity, femininity and masculinity. This collection of new essays provides an overview of flamenco scholarship, illuminating flamenco's narrative and chronology and addressing some common misconceptions. The contributors offer fresh perspectives on age-old themes and suggest new paradigms for flamenco as a cultural practice.
Celebrating Flamenco's Tangled Roots
This collection of essays poses a series of questions revolving around nonsense, cacophony, queerness, race, and the dancing body. How can flamenco, as a diasporic complex of performance and communities of practice frictionally and critically bound to the complexities of Spanish history, illuminate theories of race and identity in performance? How can we posit, and argue for, genealogical relationships within and between genres across the vast expanses of the African―and Roma―diaspora? Neither are the essays presented here limited to flamenco, nor, consequently, are the responses to these questions reduced to this topic. What all the contributions here do share is the wish to come together, across disciplines and subject areas, within the academy and without, in the whirling, raucous, and messy spaces where the body is free―to celebrate its questioning, as well as the depths of the wisdom and knowledge it holds and sometimes reveals.
Perspectives on Dance Fusion in the Caribbean and Dance Sustainability
This volume examines the theme of fusion in Caribbean dance from a wide range of perspectives, including its socio-cultural-historical formation. The contributions are drawn from a conference entitled Caribbean Fusion Dance Works: Rituals of Modern Society, which focused primarily on the Caribbean as a unique locale. However, chapters on dance fusions in other diasporic locations and the sustainability of dance as an art form are also included here in order to offer a sense of an inevitable and, in some instances, desirable evolution due to the globalizing forces that continue to influence dance.
Papers Presented
Flamenco Contemporáneo: Dance as Resistance in a Process of Expansion, presented as part of the Conference entitled,
The Sustainability of Dance as an Art Form: Economics, Politics and The Philosophy of Resistance, an initiative of the Errol Barrow Centre for Creative Imagination. University of the West Indies, Barbados. March, 2014.
Formation and Development of Arará Cabildos in Matanzas: Identity Reconstructed and Reinforced, presented in Music and Dance: Epistemologies in Movement at the Caribbean Philosophical Association's Shifting the Geography of Reason VIII: The University, Public Education and the Transformation of Society. Rutgers University, New Brunswick. September, 2011.
Formation and Development of Arará Cabildos in Matanzas, presented at the 4th CRI Conference on Cuban and Cuban-American Studies. Florida International University, Miami. March, 2002.
The Arará in Cuba: Dance as a Repository of Religious Practice and Philosophy, Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MA in Latin American and Caribbean Studies. Dr. Terry Rey, Thesis Director. Florida International University, 2001.
Santería Yesterday and Today: A New Level of Syncretism, presented at the XIX Annual Institute of Latin American Studies Conference on Latin America. University of Texas, Austin. February, 1999. Chosen for online publication.
Recent presentations
"Shifting Discourses in Aesthetics and Practice: Political Propaganda and the Development of Contemporary Flamenco." Department of Gender Studies, Keene State College, NH and Department of Speech, Theater and Dance, University of Central Florida, Tampa
"Passion, passion, passion: The development of Flamenco as an art form and its use and economic and political currency." Dance Symposium Series curated by Pioneer Winter
"Beyond borders: Women artists stretching the boundaries of their form." Women's History Month Program at Miami Dade County Public Library System
"Comparative models in the presentation of Dance in the US." Department of Humanities as part of the course "Traditions and Musical Genres" of the Degree in Arts Administration. University of Huelva, Spain.
"Memoria DNA/Memory ADN: An exploration of liquid cartographies." Performance and Discussion. Institute for Iberian and Mediterranean Studies at Florida International University