Mcmains Latin-ness Dance Sport

Brownface: Representations of Latin-Ness in Dancesport Author(s): Juliet McMains Source: Dance Research Journal, Vol. 33, No. 2, Social and Popular Dance (Winter, 2001), pp. 54 -71 Published by: University of Illinois Press on behalf of Congress on Research in Dance Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1477804 Accessed: 20/08/2009 08:07 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=illinois. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

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Brownface: Representations of Latin-ness in Dancesport Juliet McMains The overwhelmingstenchof alcoholhoversin the hotelbathroomas my dancepartnerlathers a fourthlayerof brownbodypaintontomy belly."Youhaveto learnhow to applyyour tan properly,"he admonishessternlyas I squirmunderthe sting of chemicalsburningmy skin. After rejecting twelve self-tanningproducts,I have finally found one that stains my fair skin darkenough for me to "pass"as a professionalLatin dancesportcompetitor.Dancesportrefers to a highly stylized version of ballroom dancing performedin competitioncircuits across the United States, Europe, and Asia. InternationalStyle Dancesportencompasses both the standardcategory,comprisedof dances most readily associated with aristocraticballrooms (e.g., waltzes and foxtrots), and the Latin division. Among the many ritualsI scoff at in this sport I love to hate is the mandatethat any competitorwho wishes to be taken seriously must cover his or her body with brown paint.At twenty-seven dollars a bottle, the Germanmade PROFITAN-Intensive-Latin-Coloris my productof choice. After three generous coats of the bronze elixir have absorbedinto my skin, my "brownface"is complete, and I am ready to withstand an entire evening of competitioncha-chas. While competitive ballroom dancersare not the only consumersof self-tanningproducts, the prevalence of artificially darkenedwhite skin in dancesportLatin competitions invites examinationinto the relationshipbetween these ballroom "Latin"dances and their racial/ethnic referents.I introducethe term "brownface,"not a word other ballroom dancersare likely to embrace,in orderto call attentionto the racial (and potentiallyracist) consequences of this practice. Many of my friends and colleagues in the dance business deny that the use of tanning creamhas anythingto do with race. It is stage makeup,they insist, designed to give pale skin a healthy glow underharshbrightlights. The fact that bodybuildersand beauty contestants also use tanningcreams when they display their body for formal evaluationbolsters this position. Others point out that tanned white skin has become associated with wealth and leisure in late industrialWestern culture, where most people work indoors out of the sun.1 Whetherfrom tanning booths or bottles, the dark skin of dancesportcelebrities aligns them with other sites of upper-classrecreation. Juliet McMains is a Ph.D. candidate in dance history and theory at the University of California, Riverside. She has been competing in dancesport for ten years, currentlyin the professional Latin division.An earlier version of this paper, "Brownface:A New Performance of Minstrelsyin LatinAmericanDance," was presentedat the 2000 Dancing in the Millennium Conference,where it received the Congress on Researchin Dance GraduateResearchAward. She is the co-author,with Danielle Robinson,of "SwingingOut: SouthernCalifornia'sLindy Revival," in I See America Dancing: Selected Readings, 1685-2000 (forthcoming). Most recentlyshe presentedher paper, "'Latin'AmericanDance: Salseros and BallroomDancers" at the 2001 CORD Conferencein New YorkCity.

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Thereis no denyingthatthe ballroomobsessionwithartificiallydarkenedskinis closely linkedto the imageof glamourand athleticismit projects.Admittedly,dancesportstandard dancersuse someformof darkmakeupfor competition,butit is in theLatincategory,where women'slegs, stomachs,andbacksandmen'schestsarefully exposed,thatthe use of such products is most pronouncedand widespread.I personally did not use tanning cream when

butfor consideration as a seriousLatincompetitor,it becamemandacompetingin standard, Whether this evolved because tory. practice costumingin the Latincategoryhas gradually or more flesh a conscious exposed attemptby competitorsto look more"Latin,"its through effects areraciallycharged.Whileraceis neverjust aboutskin color,in America'sracially fraughtsociopoliticalclimatethereis no way to readthe practiceof brownface,particularly that of the "Latin"dancesportcompetitors,that does not in some way have to do with race.

DancesportLatinis a stylizationof social ballroomdancesthat,althoughinspiredby anddefinedby theEnglish andLatinsocialdancepractices,werepopularized Afro-Caribbean the of mid-twentieth of Teachers century.Thefive interDancingthroughout ImperialSociety nationaldancesportcompetitiondancesarerumba,cha-cha,samba,paso doble,andjive. In Americandancesportcompetitionan additionalcategoryof AmericanStyle Latindances (calledAmericanRhythm)includesbolero,mambo,andswing.Afterfive to sevendecadesof revisionat thehandsof English,European,andAmericandancers,the dancesportversionsof or historicalpracticesin Latin the Latindancesbearlittle in commonwith contemporary continuesto rely America.And yet the rhetoricof danceteachersandmediarepresentatives on a close associationbetweendancesport'sLatindivisionanddancingpracticedby ethnic Latinos.I will not exploreat lengthspecificstylisticdifferencesbetweenthesetwo versions of Latin-ness of Latindance,3butwill focus on the racialimplicationsof the representations racialposiin dancesport. Aftera close readingof how dancesportchoreography "performs" of dancesport Latinto blackfaceminstrelsyleadsme to unravelhowbrowntions,comparison face functionsfor dancesportcompetitorsandspectatorsas a meansof negotiatingtheirown racial and class positions. I also explore how brownfaceobscuresAfrican historical of Latin-nessmightaffectthe andhow dancesport antecedentsto dancesport; representations lives of ethnicLatinos,on as well as off the dancefloor.

Dancesport's Racial Logic

Onone level, dancesportseemsto representa utopiancommunityin whichpeoplesof differentraces,classes,andnationalitiesarebroughttogetherby theircommonlove of dance.From of dancersfromformerSoviet-bloccountries, this romanticpointof view, the participation the powerof dancesport WesternEurope,Asia,Australia,andthe UnitedStatesdemonstrates The celebrationof Latinculture,as to unify people acrossnationalandracialboundaries.4 Europeanculture,as porexemplifiedin theLatindances,alongsidereferencesto aristocratic dances,appearsto providefurtherevidencethatdancesport equallyvaltrayedin thestandard idatesthe culturesof variedethnicgroups.In fact,dancesport"Latin"mightevendeconstruct biological racial categories when observed throughthe lens of performativitytheories.5 If the

racialposition"Latin"can be establishedthroughdancesportperformance,it follows that codes of moveracialidentitycan be assumedby any individualwho learnsthoseparticular ment,irrespectiveof perceivedbiologicalrace.However,such an imageof a multinational, andwhite-dominated multiethnicmeltingpot servesto obscurethe Eurocentrism systemsof the legacy is from is structured. the which Dancesport'shistory inseparable industry logic by

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of "Latin" of Westernimperialismandcolonialismoutof whichit evolved.Therepresentation in dancesportperformancesrelies on and reproducesstereotypesderivedfrom a racially relationswithLatinAmerica.Theveryexistenceof a catefraughthistoryof Euro-American called "Latin in which dancesfromdifferentcountrieswith radicallydifferent dance," gory historiesandphysicalpracticesare lumpedtogether,revealsthe Eurocentricperspectiveof this discourse.I am not suggestingconsciousracistintentor actionson the partof particular of raceproducedby dancesportdo interactwithlargerracial individuals,butrepresentations discoursescirculatingin Americansociety. Thenamingof the two divisionsof dancesportalreadysets up a binaryin whichLatinis a deviationfromtheWesternstandard. Broadlyspeaking,the standarddancesareof Western descentandthe Latindancesof LatinAmerican.6 While such a sweepingstatementglosses overthe complicatedhistoricaltrajectories of the dances,the categoricaldistinctionis maintainedin performance. The imageportrayedby the standardcouplebearsmuchin common withrepresentations of whitenessas discussedin literature fromthenascentfieldof whiteness studies.In his book White,culturalcriticRichardDyer examinesvisualrepresentations of whitepeoplein andby Westernculture.His analysisrevealsthatthewhiteraceis constructed as powerful,heterosexual,good,clean,godly,wealthy,light,universal,andinvisible.Central to his theoryis thenotionthatwhitenessis ableto transcendparticular bodiesandstandin for all humanity(Dyer1997).Dancesportstandard portraysmanyof thesevalues,exemplifiedin thelavishcostumes,his chivalry,herextolledbeauty,theirunisonmovement-all these"oldfashioned"markersthatappearto transcendspecific,perhapsevenracial,individualidentity. But uponeven cursoryexaminationit becomesclearthatthis notionof romance,alongwith the costumesandthe gracefulrestraintof movement,is derivedfroma European,aristocratic modelof socialdance.Aestheticvaluesareverysimilarto thoseof classicaldance,including verticalmovement,lightuse of bodyweight,concealmentof effort,flowingmovement,and extensionandlengthof musclesandbodylines. poses foregrounding Thisrepresentation of whitenessis partiallyenabledby the corollaryracialpositionthat is represented in the Latindivisionof competition.Thetwo categoriesarealwaysjuxtaposed at competitions,neitherone ever appearingwithoutthe other.7If the standardperformance mustsignala racialidentitywhichis "Other" to representswhiteness,the Latinperformance this white standard.Consistentwith representations of Othernessexaminedby postcolonial versionof LatinrevealsmuchmoreaboutWesterndesiresthanactual theorists,dancesport's of individuals whoconsiderthemselvesethnicallyorraciallyLatin.8Performance experiences artistandculturalcriticCocoFuscohaspointedoutthattheracialcategory"Latino" collapses sucha broadrangeof ethnic,racial,andculturalgroupsthatits usefulnessas a categorycan be verylimited(Fusco1995).It mostoftencomesto havemeaningthroughthe way in which in theUnited peoplesfromdifferentLatinAmericannationsexperiencesimilardiscrimination States.However,to speakof Latinoas a racialcategoryis confusing,to say the least, since Latinosare white,black,brown,and dozensof mestizoshadesin between.Skin color and of socialposition,andyet the fiction classpositionplay significantrolesin the determination of a generic"Latin"identityis fosteredthroughdancesport. A readingof the movementsperformedin Latindancesportrevealshow this Other,nonwhiteracialidentityconstructedby Latindancesportperformancecontrastswith the white ballroompractices.It is moresexual, Westernracialpositionpreviouslyidentifiedin standard of hip movements,andvisualnarrative(the story as signaledby costuming,predominance

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cnstructed in movesthatareoftenmimickingsexualseducsuggestedby the performance) tion.As opposedto thestandard dances,whichrequirethecoupleto be in a closeddanceposition (pressedagainsteachotherin a perpetualembrace),Latindancescan be performedin a widerangeof relativebodypositions,allowingfor morevariationsin choreography andpersonalexpression.TheLatindanceperformance also suggestsa non-whiteracialpositionthat appearsto be morephysicallyandemotionallyexpressiveowingto the greaterrangeof body shapes and movement choices However Latin also appears re "pimitive because its techqe and choreographyare less forlly structuredthan standard'sFor example almost

everyst

variationhasbeennamedandits techniqe writtendownfor decades,whereas

advancedLatin choreographyis being reinventedeach year by its practitioners.This choreo-

to be morecreative graphicfreedomin theLatincategoryopenspossibilitiesfornonwhiteness andinnovative,butatthe sametimeleavesLatinopento accusationsof beingless disciplined and controlledthanthe "refined"standarddances While the standarddancesrepresenta romanticfairytale of civized Westernculture,the Latindancesrepresenta primitivemode of huma express thatis by contrastoverlysexual,emotional,andphysical.Theseidentities arenot contextualized in timeor placebutby theirrelationship to each other.Therefore, if the Latindanceris constructedin contrastto the Western,civilized,arisocatic, andwhite standarddancer,the Latindancermst be non-Weste, uncivilized,savage,andnonwhite (plate1). of race in the ballroomis not quite as simple as such a However,the representation white/nonwhite9 dichotomysuggests.The brownfaceof the Latindans markstheird ence not only fromthe standarddancersimthe ballroom,but lso fromthe Latno dancers salseros,tangueros,sambistasoutside the ballrooms.Beyond ski color, dancesportathletes

also performtheirdifferencefromethnicLatinosthrougha movementtechniquethatis recognizablydiffrent fromLatino cial dancepractices.So, whilebothballroomLatindancers andclub salsadancers,for example,may dance Latin"dancingto the samemusic,the two will look very differentThe ballroomLatindancermightbe characterized as performances balanced a and from different and clean, controlled, stiff, sterile, (or appearing perspective predictable)in contrastto the salsa dancers rhythmical,playful,spontaneous,and free (or wild messy,violent,andoff-balance)style RichardDyerpoints ut thattannedwhte skinis still recognizable as white (Dyer 1997, 49). He reminds his readersthat someone who uses tanningproductscan borrowparticularcharacteristicsassociatedwith a nonwhiteethnic group without forfeiting white racial privilege. Likewise, "Latin ballroomdancing is still ballroom dancing. The ballroom Latin dancer borrows some of the passion and s ality assciated with Latin dancing without forfeiting the class and racial privilege by which ballroom dancing is defined. Neier the white dancers in bronze paint nor the English dances with Latin names become the racialOthersthey refer to. They maintaintheirwhite privilege even as they

associatedwithLatinculture. tradein the exoticcharacteristics

Brownface's MinstrelLegacy

in theUnitedStatesdoes not approachthe popularWhilethecurrentvisibilityof dancesport blackface attained American minstrelsy (1830s-1930s),theparallelsbetweenthesetwo by ity formsarestriking.Inbothpractices,lighter-skinned entertainment performs painttheirbody darkerin orderto takeon behavioralstereotypesascribedto an ethnicgroupwithdarkerskin and less social, political, and economic power.In the case of minstrelsy performerswere pri-

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Plate 1. YouthInternationalStyle Latincompetitorsat the UnitedStates DancesportChampionshipsin the FountainbleuHiltonHotel, MiamiBeach. This photographcaptures the commonjuxtapositionof (here in the costuming)in dancesport Latin. long body lines and references to "primitiveness" David Mark. Photo 1999. by September,

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marily Irish immigrants,not yet American enough to be considered white in the mid-nineteenth century, who blackened their skin in order to perform gross caricaturesof African Americans.Americandancesport,which is a fringe activity comparedwith minstrelsyin antebellum America, is predominantlypracticed by Eastern-Europeanimmigrants who bronze their skin in orderto performwhat to many appearsto be a gross caricatureof Latinos.In both blackface and brownface, light-skinned, newly arrived immigrant performersborrow and redefine culturalproducts-music and dance-of a minorityethnic groupfor theirown profit. While the power imbalancebetween blacks and whites in antebellumAmerica was much more acute than that between Latinos and whites in America today, theories that have been developed about how blackface functioned in its time can be useful for understandinghow brownface is operative in contemporaryAmerican dancesport. Cultural historian David Roediger (1991) has arguedthatIrishminstrelactorsand audienceswere able to establishtheir own position as "white"by ensuring their distance from blackness in minstrel performance. The imperfectmimicry of a racial Otherby blackface entertainersinvited comparisonthatreified their racial difference.Although not a direct parallel,Eastern-Europeandancesportcompetitorsmay be solidifying their own white statusthroughperforminga distance from Latinos in brownface performance.Linda Mizejewski theorizes that Jewish and Eastern-European Ziegfeld Girls performingin "caf6 au lait" makeup(lightskinnedblackface) in the 1920s likewise solidified their own white assimilation by invoking comparisonwith those whose skin color was too dark to become "white"(Mizejewski1997, 10-11). While Eastern-European dancesportcompetitors(many of whom are Jews who have been grantedreligious asylum in the United States) are not facing the same prejudices, currentcultural and political anxiety about Latino immigration specifically, and the loss of white American cultural dominance more generally,may necessitate similarperformancesof racial distance.10 Moreover,the popularityof both minstrelsyand dancesportforestalledthe ability of members of the minorityethnic groupsto representand commodify their own arts.It was not until well into the twentieth centurythatAfrican-Americanentertainerscould easily performanything other than the happy-go-luckyJim Crow and Zip Coon minstrel characters.Likewise, Latino artistshave only recently begun to successfully performand sell their own versions of Latin dance markets,such as the rapLatin dancingin America.These emerging "authentic"1' idly growing global salsa community,rely heavily on a hypersexualizedstereotype of Latin dance. So, while on the one hand salsa offers an alternativeto the dancesportversion of Latin dancing, it is still largely determinedby expectationsthe ballroom dance industryhas created about what defines "Latin"on the dance floor. CulturalhistorianEric Lott has suggested that minstrelsyencompassedboth a fascination with black culture and a simultaneousderision of it, a "dialecticalflickering of racial insult and racialenvy" (Lott 1993, 6). RichardDyer underscoresthis point in his work on visual representationsof whiteness when he points out that cosmetically darkenedwhite skin can signal a desire to take on some of the characteristicsascribedto the darkerracial group (Dyer 1997, 49). This ambivalencetowardOthers,a desire to try on but not get too close to the racialOther, is also reflectedin Latin dancing.Like the minstrelshow, which reveals more aboutwhite fantasies of black culturethan about black cultureitself, accordingto Lott, dancesportperformances expose Westernfantasies of what it means to be Latin.

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Brownface Uncovered The almosttotalabsenceof dancesportin LatinAmericancountriesis perhapsthe mostconvincingevidencethatit is aboutWestern,not Latin,culture.Mostvisuallyprominentin the of the performingbodies,underscored dancesportversionof Latinis the hypersexualization by the costuming,the visualnarrativeconstructedin movesthatareoftenmimickingsexual boththeteachingandtheperformance of thisstyle seduction,andthediscoursethatsurrounds of dance. Even a brief glanceat the attirewornon the competitionfloor-little morethan rhinestone-covered bathingsuitsfor womenandskintightpantswithshirtsopento the navel for men-reveals a visualdiscoursethatis not aboutwhatLatinosactuallywear,butrathera theatricalized projectionof whatan exoticOthermightlook like. the enactedin dancesport Latinthatproducesthis Beyond clothes,it is thevisualnarrative Latin stereotypeso embracedby the West. While each of the five InternationalStyle competition dances has its own character-the rumba is passionate, the cha-cha is flirtatious,the samba is playful, the jive is exuberant,and the paso doble alternatelyportraystwo flamenco gypsy dancers and a bullfighter with his cape-all tell a story of heterosexual courtship throughsocial dance. But dancesportis not social dance. While it developed out of Western

socialdancepracticesandis deeplyintertwinedwiththe socialdanceindustry,dancesportis In contrastto manypartnered LatinAmericansocialdance highlystylizedtheatricalart/sport. formsin whichimprovisation andplayfulnessare central,dancesportfavorswell-rehearsed routinescarefullychoreographedfor maximumdisplay of skill and spectaculareffect. Seductionis practicedon the audiencesandjudges,not withinthe partnership. As in the ballet pas de deux,preferencefor long bodylines oftensupplantsany tendencytowardrealism in thesepassionateembraces.Butunlikeballetdancers,whosehipsareshowcasedonlyas the pointfromwhichthelegs andtorsoextend,ballroomLatindancersisolate,gyrate,thrust,and roll theirpelvis.It is this strikingbreakwiththeprominenttraditionof partnering in Western balletthathelpsto concretizetheLatinstereotypeas excessivelysexual,passionate,andemotional.While social dancein LatinAmericamay be moresexuallyexpressivethanWestern versionsthattheyarenotevenrecforms,thesequalitiesareso exaggeratedin thedancesport ognizableto mostLatinosas Latindance.12Subtlety,playfulness,musicality,13andimprovisation have been virtuallyexpelled from dancesportLatin, leaving only exaggeratedsexual postures and gestures to markthese dances as "Latin." The marking of sexuality in these dances as Other was probably crucial to their initial acceptanceinto Westernballroomsfrom the 1930s throughthe 1950s. Westernsocial dancers could embracethe sensuality and sexuality of the Latin dances without owning them as part of their own culture.The contemporarymedia glut of explicit sexual imagery might suggest this argumentis difficult to sustain when applied to dancesportpracticedin the twenty-first century.However, the overwhelmingpresenceof sexual imageryin Americansociety does not mean thatAmericananxiety about sexuality is resolved; many observersand participantsmay find comfortin projectingtheir sexuality onto the space of Latin Other. Furthermore,displays of explicit sexuality are still not considered "classy,"the coveted label by which dancesport aspires to be categorized. While the class status of dancesportand its participantsis much more complex and beyond the scope of this essay, the Americanballroomdance industryhas always been invested in appealing to audiences who are, if not already upper-class,at least upwardlymobile.14

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Perhapscovering the nearly naked dancing bodies with something, even if it is only tanning cream, is enough to protect the industryfrom a looming downward spiral toward strip clubs and escort services. Brownfaceprovides enough cover for dancesport'sversion of Latin sexy to remainclassy (plate 2). Classy and sexy can be unitedunderthe safety of a brownface mask, where the professional dancer and conspiring audience can enjoy this erotic sexuality without forfeiting class status. Anotherreason that sexuality in dancesportcan be expressed only undercover of brownface is that such unproblematizeddisplays of heterosexualityand unabashederotic celebration of Westerncorporeal beauty are not generally accepted in "high art."Nudity as a political statementmay be controversial,but at least it is considered art. Ballroom costumes and aesthetics look more like those that appearin Las Vegas strip clubs than those of "artdancers." Withoutthe historical momentumof ballet, the self-reflexive political probes of many modem dance choreographies,or the popularsupportof jazz dance, dancesportstrugglesto secure its terpsichoreanstatus.While the tension between dancesport'sdual identity as sport and art has been heightened since its 1997 recognitionas an official Olympic Sport,'5many ballroom

Plate 2. Juliet McMainsand formerpartnerSonny Perryin competition "brownface," which has startedto rundown Sonny's face and neck. Embassy Ball, Irvine,California.September, 1999. Photo by Dave Head.

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dancers strive to be recognized as "artists."16 By maintaininga fiction of "authentic"Latin dancing, they can justify the gaudy costumes and vulgar gestures. Under a guise of ethnographicrepresentationof third-worlddance forms, movement that might otherwisebe read as low-class in the American context can be transformedinto high-class art. When many of the same dancersappearin front of the same judges to performthe standarddances, the suggestion of sexuality is much more subtle. Women'slegs are hidden underseven layers of chiffon, and althoughmale and female bodies are pressed close together in full frontal contact, there is no grinding or pulsing of the pelvic region. At least this particularkind of sexuality is reserved only for brownface. But the performanceof brownfaceis more complicatedthan merely a Westernprojection of sexuality onto an exotic Other.In American scholarshipand popular discourse alike, the less discussed discourse of class differenceis far too often mappedonto ethnic and racial difference. A similar transpositionfrom class to race is reproducedin dancesportperformance. While the American ballroom dance industryhas long been one that sells upper-classstatus and class mobility,17the extreme class differences among its participantsare rarelydiscussed. The economic foundationof the American dancesportindustryis pro-am competition-amateur dancerswho pay their professionalteachersto compete with them in the same circuit of competitionsas the top level amateurand professionalathletes.Most professionaldancesport competitorsin America finance their expensive coaching and travel schedules by selling their services in pro-amcompetitions.For these pro-amstudents,dancesportis a hobby-their professional reputationand economic stability lie elsewhere. Dancesport professionals, on the other hand, usually have little college education or significant earning potential outside the industry.Most come from working-classbackgrounds,many of them recentimmigrants,striving to live out the Americandreamthroughsuccess as dancesportathletes.To pursueballroom dancingas a hobby is consideredclassy, but to rely on it for one's economic securityis another class entirely.No one wants to admit that Latin dancesportprofessionalshail from the lower classes if they are also mastersof its classy movement technique.Instead,they are markedby brownface as exotic (racial) Others.Not black, not white, different,but not too differentfrom its consumers, properly tanned dancesportprofessionals with superiormovement technique are covered by a racial markerthat standsin for the less visible signifier of class."

African Roots If Latin dance is racializedin orderto hide the functionof class difference,there are also ways in which class is used to disguise its racial history. The ballroom Latin dances, while Westernized,are derivativeof African-basedmovement forms. Rumba, mambo, and cha-cha are descendantsof Afro-Cubandance and music; samba is an Afro-Braziliandance; andjive is the English version of African-Americanswing dancing. All these dance forms were syncretizationsof African and Europeandance traditionsin their Cuban,Brazilian,andAmerican settings. No doubtthese dances were successful in EuropeanandAmericanballroomsin part because practitionerscould imagine that they were engaging in "primitive"Latin behavior. For example, in his 1942 dance manual,ArthurMurraystates that La Conga as practicedin ballrooms was adaptedfrom dances practicedby "colorednatives" in Cuba. "Remember-it originatedwith, and for generationshas been danced by, simple natives. And if they learn it, you certainlycan!" (Murray1942, 175) Not only does such a statementinsult the intelligence and culturalcomplexity of Cubans,it also ignores the culturalcontext and physical complex-

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ity of theCubandanceformfromwhichLaCongawaspoached.Murray'sversionreducesthe danceto footplacements.My own experiencewithCubandancesuggeststhatfootplacement is relativelyunimportant by thehips,pelvis,torso,and comparedwiththerhythmsarticulated shoulders.So the namesandoriginstoriesfor thesedancesweremaintainedby the Western social dance industryschools and organizationsthat codifiedLatin dance forms,but the altered. dancesandtheirsocialandculturalmeaningsweredramatically Latindanceformshavecontinuedto developsince Whilebothballroomand"authentic" ballroomdanceteachersfirstimportedthemfromLatinAmerica,comparisonof the contemLatindances(suchas salsa,Argentine poraryballroomformto currentpracticesof "authentic" differences.19Theballroomforms is useful for these and Brazilian samba) highlighting tango, tend to be characterized by a straightspine,movementthatis producedthroughbalanced transferof weightfromfoot to foot, foot positionsthatareclearlyarticulated, poses andbody tone the entire is extreme the in which throughout body,andpredombody extended, shapes formsarecomprisedof specifictechniques inanceof predetermined steps.While"authentic" Latin.They to eachform,thereareseveralcommonalitieswithdancesport thatareparticular the between is that a and flexible more arecharacterized suspended spine;weight dynamic by cenandrelativelyunimportant; feet duringmovement;foot placementthatis approximate and muscle in of a in relaxation articulated the of majority groups; body; trality polyrhythms dances for of the Latin structures.20 musical linked to "Cleaningup" closely improvisation race boundaries. class and inclusionin the ballroomrequiredthatthey cross both Tango, mambo,rumba,andsambawereoriginallypracticedby the darkestandpoorestmembersof This whiteningand classingup requiredintellectualmasteryof the Latin communities.21 elements,anddiscipliningthe body andthe dance movement,eliminatingits unpredictable intoorganizedfootstepsandpatternsof motion. A briefcomparisonof dancesportLatinmovementtechniqueandthatemployedin contemporarysalsa dancingillustratesthis point.BallroomLatindancersmaintaina consistent the courseof dancing,so thateveryshiftof weightis clearlycommuconnectionthroughout nicatedfromone bodyto the other.Theyaccomplishthis tightconnectionby maintaininga stableframein the armsandmovingtheribcage andbackwithinthisframeto communicate movementchoices.Salsadancersmaintaina looserconnectionthroughthe hands.Leadsare initiatedby movingthearmsortheentirebodyweight,ratherthanmovingtheribcagewithin a stable dance frame. Strongbody to body connection throughthe hands is used only to initiate turns,not to coordinateeach step. While ballroom Latin dancers shun this loose connection because more dynamic and faster changes of energy are not possible, more spontaneous improvisationsare. Since perfect coordinationof movementis not expected between partners, missteps become new steps, ratherthan mistakes.

for eithermemberof the Asidefromthepossibilitiesit offersin individualimprovisation this differencein lead/followtechniquealso requiresa contrastingrelationship partnership, amongvariousmusclesin the body.In ballroomLatin,the majormusclegroupsin the stomach,back,pelvis,legs, andfeet arealwaysconnected.Whilethey do not alwaysmovein the same directionat the sametime, movementin any one areaalwaysaffectsthe others.For example,a weightshift throughthe feet andbendingof one knee enablesa rotationof the pelvis andsubsequentmovementacrossthe ribsandback,whichthenproducesa tiny pressurechangein the man'shandson his partner'sback,indicatingto herthe precisemomentat of majormuscle groups which she shouldshift her weight.This strictinterconnectedness

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allows for the kind of speed in partneringdynamics that gives ballroom Latin its unique appeal. However, what it does not encourage is the kind of polyrhythmicmovement that is popularin salsa dancing.Because salsa music is based on many differentrhythmsinteracting to produceits complex structure,dancersoften mimic the differentinstrumentswith different partsof their bodies. For example, salsa dancersmay move their feet in rhythmwith the congas, thrusttheirrib cage forwardin time to the clave, and shimmy their shouldersbetween the hits of the cowbell. It is the disconnection of the muscle groups and their ability to initiate independentmovements that gives salsa its particularmovement style. It is this techniqueof polyrhythmicbody articulationthat links salsa dancing most closely to West African dance Thus, the defining practicesfrom which both the music and the movement draw inspiration.23 characteristicsof these two movement forms are clearly linked to racializedmovement practices-the black West African dance practices that foregroundmultiple points of articulation and the white Westernconcert dance traditions,particularlyballet, thatprivilege bodily cohesion and control. The earliest practitionersof nearly every Latin dance form were African slaves or their descendantsliving in Latin America, and yet all explicit referenceto Africa has fallen out of these African-inspireddance forms as they are practicedin ballrooms.24 Certainlymany of the qualities that have been dubbed "Africanist Aesthetics" have remained in the dances.25 Polyrhythms,high-affectjuxtaposition,and ephebism dominatein Latin dancesportperformance. But strikinglyabsent from this version of Latin dancing is the buttocks. Culturalcritic RichardGreenhas theorizedthatfocus on the black "booty"and its reputedlysubstantialproportionshas been centralto representationsof blackness in Westernculture(Green2000). The techniquefor ballroomLatin dancing follows Westerndance traditions,which insist on tucking the butt under the body in order to enable more balanced and aerodynamicmovement throughspace. There are moments in the dancing when the butt is thrustbackwardin poses designed to showcase it. However, movement throughspace relies on a backside that is not posteriorto the rest of the body. The bottom must be in a straightline with the rib cage, shoulders, feet, and head.26The hips are allowed to rotateon this vertical axis, but the butt must not protrudebackwardwhile the body is in locomotion. Technically, this development enables sudden stops aftervery fast movements because the body weight is always balancedover one foot. On the other hand, a relaxation (and thrusting outward) of the butt enables more polyrhythmswithin the body, an aestheticthathas been overshadowedby the drive to produce faster and more dynamic horizontalmovement. Contemporarypractices of Latin dances outside the ballroom community celebrate the beauty of the buttocks. In the Argentine version of tango, torsos are inclined inward toward each other and butts lag behind, while both the English and American dancesport styles requirethat the hips are pressed underand the torsos are stretchedoutward.In describingthis distinction, cultural critic Marta Savigliano points out that the more "refined"(i.e., higherclass and whiter) styles in which the torsos are balanced away from each other were coveted by elite Argentineansin the 1920s (Savigliano 1995, 149-153). Hiding the buttocks appears to have been one of the central strategiesfor shifting the categorizationof this dance in both class and racial hierarchies.While swing is not considered a Latin dance by most, it is performed in the Latin category in dancesportcompetitions and shares antecedentsin African rhythms.The currentcraze for 1940s-style swing dancingin nightclubsacrossAmericais ripe with backsides hanging gleefully behind torsos as dancerswhirl aroundin a near sitting posi-

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tion. Footage of Whitey's Lindy Hoppers, the Savoy Ballroom originals, reveals that this crouchedposition was the style in which the African-Americanoriginatorsof swing dancing moved.27The butt was ever-present.However, the posture was straightenedup by the social dance industryfor white ballrooms.A 1950s ArthurMurraydance manualspecifically warns, "Don't dance with your hips way back...Dancing with hips way back is out of date."(Murray 1959, 219). The illustrationof what not to do bears a strikingsimilarityto the posture of the black Lindy hoppers,suggesting that,like the case of tango, making swing acceptableto white patronsrequiredhiding the racially markedbackside. Was the disappearanceof the butt as a site of movement in Europeanand American Latin dancing merely a technical development in pursuitof maximumspeed in this ever more virtuosic dance form?Or did it have something also to do with the erasureof blackness from the history of Latin dancing?If the buttis indeed markedas black, as RichardGreen suggests, I suspect thatthe absentbutt in Westernversions of Latin dances has as much to do with rewritingtheir racial history as their technical development. It appearsthat Latin exoticism was marketable,but African exoticism was not.

Bodily Presence More poignantthanthe absence of the black butt in the discourse and techniqueis the absence of the black body in the contemporarypractice. There are very few black dancesportcompetitors.Asians and a growing numberof Latinos are beginning to participatein dancesport competitions,but black bodies are almost entirely absent.Those representingthis sportto the public are acutely aware of this absence, at times distorting the demographics so that the American public will not call it racism. For example, creators of the 1998 dancesportfilm Dance WithMe, starringAfrican American Vanessa Williams, invented a "South African" competitionpartnershipby teamingup Rick Robinsonand MariaTorres,two of the only black competitors in the professional American dancesportscene. Dancers in the film's climactic "international"competition scene were drawn from the ranks of American and Canadian dancesportprofessionals,appearingundertheir own names with their own partnersrepresenting the country of origin of at least one member of the partnership,with the exception of Robinson and Torres(plate 3). During a personal interview,Torresexpressed her own mixed feelings about this casting decision. On the one hand, she recognizes that positively representingan ethnic minorityin a Hollywood film is in itself a victory to be celebrated.However, she laments that neither she nor Robinson was representingtheir own competitioncareeror ethnic background.The film's producersmay have felt compelled to reinventthe racial demographicsof dancesportcompetition in order to justify their casting of Vanessa Williams in the starringrole as dancesport champion,but the irony of choosing SouthAfrica as a symbolic representationof racial tolerance and diversity could not have failed to register with many viewers. Throughoutthe publicity surroundingthe film, no dancesportexpert broachedthe sensitive topic of black disinterest in the sport. In an essay for Dance Beat (an American dancesportnewspaper),two of the dancersappearingin this scene stressedhow authenticthe directorhad tried to make this scene by seeking out the most highly rankedcompetitors."They were looking for the top six and if somebody couldn't do it they went down the list" ("Dance WithMe" 1988, 22). There was no mention in the interview of why this pursuitto representdancesportaccuratelyled to the fabricationof a SouthAfrican couple. While dancesportLatin is all about imagined racial difference of the Latin Other, explicit discussion of bodies of particularrace is apparently

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taboo for dancesport ambassadors. WVhile black interest in dancesport remains minimal, there are increasing numbers of Latino dancersentering the Latin divisions of dancesportcompetitions in the United States. Latino ballroom dancers with whom I have discussed issues of cultural appropriation believe that they are workingto change the system from within by introducing movements from "authentic" Latindances into theirdancesport routines. They believe that they can take the best from both movement techniques and unite them on the ballroomfloor. But the fact that these routines are being performed in the ballroom,and evaluated by the dancesport industry's rules and aesthetics, already stacks the power differential on one side. Latinos who try to perform their own Latin-ness

,

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,

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throughautoexoticismare often Plate3. VanessaWilliams andRickValenzuela at the Mathews

accused of exceeding the expecfilmed Arenain an exhibition danceforan invitational competition tations of their own identity. fortelevision.Boston,November5, 1998. Photoby DavidMark. Latina dancesport competitor MariaTorres,whose trainingalso includedAfro-Cubandance, recalls that she was chastised by judges as being "too authentic,too street,too Latin"(Torres,2001). So, while one reading of Latinobodies perfonrming Latin dances suggests thatnonwhites are breakinginto white systems of power, the racial politics in this system are changing very slowly. While I have suggested that dancesportis deeply entrenchedin its racist history,I am not convinced it is more or less pernicious than otherAmerican culturalpractices that developed out of Westernexpansionism.Despite personalexperiences of racism, MariaTorresherself is remarkablyupbeat about the changes she and others have inspiredthroughtheir own participation in dancesport.She notes greaterracial diversity in competition and a greaterrange of movement choices. Many dancesport competitors have begun to study and appreciate a broaderrange of "Latin"dance outside the ballroomindustry,some even changing their rhetoric to indicate that dancesportis but one version of Latin dance. The dancesportestablishment has even begun to celebrateMariaTorres'scontributionto dancesport,albeit only after she has received critical acclaim in other dance industries.Perhapsthe greatestchange will be enacted from pressuresoutside the dancesportcommunity.AlternativeLatin dance communi-

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ties and industries,particularlythose of salsa and Argentinetango, are gaining greaterpopularity and recognition worldwide, forcing the ballroomindustryto reexamine and redefine its own interpretationof Latin dancing. My intent in drawingout these racial issues is not to condemn the practiceof dancesport, but to broadenthe perspectives from which both its practitionersand its viewers understand its representationsof Latin-ness.Brownface masks far more than the biological white skin of its dancers.It obscuresthe racisthistory out of which this practiceemergedas well as the ways in which race and class are often conflated in American discourse. Brownface provides enough cover for dancesport'sversion of Latin sexy to remainclassy. The brownfaceritualis also one that negotiates the complex relations of class and nationalitythrougha recognizable bodily discourse of race. It offers a model for assimilation into white Westernculture.And brownface recolors the history of Latin dancing, repaintingthe dark skin of its African roots and the racial politics in which it is implicatedto a lighter,more palatabletone.

Acknowledgements

in Danceseminargroupat the I wouldlike to thankthemembersof the 1999RaceandRepresentation whom to stimulate all of developmentof thiswork.I would helped Universityof California,Riverside, like to extend particulargratitudeto my friend and colleague Danielle Robinson. Withouther similar engagementwith issues of race and representationin Americansocial dance forms, I might never have

been ableto workmyselfbeyonda perceivedstateof paralysiscausedby simultaneous passionsfor andcriticalracetheory. dancesport

Notes 1. Beforethe Industrial Revolution,palewhiteskinwas a sign of upper-classleisure,representing anindividual'sexemptionfromthe toils of outdoorlabor. 2. Originally,this divisionof competitionwas called"LatinandAmerican"to accountfor the inclusionof the Americanjive. Eventuallythis namewas shortenedto "LatinAmerican"or Thanksto dancehistorianTerryMonaghanforpointingoutthis evenmorecommonly"Latin." historicaldevelopmentto me. 3. Fora moredetailedcomparisonof salsaanddancesport Latin,see McMains(2001). 4. Countriesthat enteredcontestantsin the 2000 International DancesportFederationWorld heldin Miami,Florida,on September10, 2000, LatinAmericanDancesportChampionships includedEngland,Italy,SouthAfrica,Japan,China,Germany,Australia,Slovenia,Russia, Ireland,Denmark,Canada,United States, Yugoslavia,Latvia, Norway,Bosnia, France, Romania,Finland,New Ukraine,Poland,CzechRepublic,Switzerland, Taiwan,Luxembourg, Zealand,Hungary,Slovakia,Israel,Belarus,The Netherlands,Scotland,Sweden,Armenia, Belgium,Austria,Norway,Spain,Estonia,andBulgaria. see Butler(1990). 5. Forthe cardinalworkon performativity, are the tango,a danceof Argentineandescentthatis 6. The exceptionsto this generalization the and dancedin the standardsection, jive, a derivationof the Americanswing, whichis These division. dancedin the Latin emergedfromthe historicalmomentat categorizations in whichtheserespectivedancesgainedpopularity Europe.The tangowas alreadya popular dancein Englandwhenthe standarddivisionwas definedin the 1920s.TheLatindivisionof was addedseveraldecadeslater. dancesport

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7.

However, new Americantelevision programsfeaturingdancesporthave startedto separatethe two categories, producingone programthat is just Latin and anotherfor the standardcompetition.

8.

For theories of the "Other,"see Said (1978) and Bhabha(1990).

9.

I chose the imperfect term "nonwhite"over alternativessuch as "people of color" because I wish to emphasize that white is a color (racial position) and that it is one's relationshipto whiteness that is most importantfor access to power. See Dyer (1997) for a discussion of terminology choices.

10. Dancesportis a popularsport for childrenin EasternEurope.One readingof the participation of so many Eastern-Europeanimmigrantsin Americandancesportsuggests that it reconnects them to their ethnic and culturalheritage. However, their success in the Americandancesport industryhas been so phenomenalthat anyone with a Russian name or accent is almost automaticallyreveredby the white Americandancesportindustry.For entirecommunitiesof immigrants who have seen their children represent the United States at world championships, dancesportbecomes not only a symbol of assimilationbut a vehicle throughwhich they gain acceptanceinto Americansociety. 11. I use the term "authentic"to refer to a wide variety of contemporarysocial dance practices alive in the Latino diaspora.I recognize that "authenticity"is always a constructedconcept. 12. This reactionis dramatizedin the 1998 film Dance with Me, when Cheyenne's character,having just arrivedfrom Cuba to an Americanballroom dance studio says, "That'scha-cha-cha? I never seen a Latin dance that looked like that." 13. I suggest that dancesport Latin is less musical than Latino social dance practices because dancesportcompetitors perform the same prechoreographedroutines no matter the musical selection of the disc jockey or orchestra.Spontaneoustiming adjustmentsto match the music are usually not practiced and often not possible given the complexity of the choreography. Improvisationalsocial dancers, on the other hand, are more likely to invent steps that fit the mood and accents of the particularpiece of music they are dancing to. 14. Some of my analysis on this subject was presentedin McMains (1999). 15. Recognition in 1997 has not yet resultedin the sport'sactual inclusion on the Olympic schedule. 16. Evidence of this longing to be understoodas artists,not just athletes and entertainers,appears in tradepublicationsand books aboutballroom dancing. See Vermey (1994). 17. See Malnig (2001). 18. This class analysis is relevantonly in the Americancontext. Pro-amcompetitionis a uniquely Americanphenomenonand dancesportin many Europeancountriesis a working-class activity. 19. For a more historicaldiscussion of this whiteningprocess in the Americansocial dance industry, see Robinson (2001). 20. I have made these generalizationsbased on several years of observationand practice of ballroom Latin, salsa, Argentinetango, Brazilian samba, Lindy Hop, Cubanrumba,and cha-cha. Conversations (and physical demonstrations)with Jesus Morales, Cheryl Bush, Christian

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Perry,AlexandraGisher,Anna Scott, and Gloria Otero were particularlyuseful in clarifying these distinctions. 21. There are several histories written about the "origins"of each of these dances and their trajectories out of the barrios and into mainstreamand upper-class culture. For example, see Savigliano (1994), Daniel (1995), Vianna (1999), and Boggs (1992). 22. Susan Foster's work on the historyof ballet suggests thatthe impetus to organizethe body into straightlines in the Latin dances also may have been an attemptto neutralizeits disruptive potential. She arguesthat developmentsin ballet technique duringthe nineteenthcenturydisciplined the body into geometricalshapes and mathematicalstructures.She writes of this new Pythagoreanizedballet body that, "the body largely did what it was told. It did not initiate or carry on a discourse, and ballet did not cultivate impulses. Sporadicrambunctiousinitiatives on the body's partsuch as those manifest in the can-can or the tango could only be interpreted as licentious and lacking in all aestheticvalues" (Foster 1996, 258). This shift allowed for ballet to move to a higherposition in the rationalworld of Europeanculture.Such a similargeometry of the body in the ballroom Latin dances helped them to move from their position in lower-class and nonwhite popular culture in Latin America to prominence in higher-class white EuropeanandAmericansociety. 23. For discussions of characteristicsof WestAfricandance, which include body segmentationand polyrhythmicmovement, see Malone (1996), and Scott (1997). 24. Several other authorshave writtenabout the refusal to recognize African-basedcontributions to Americanculture.See Gottschild (1997), and Wallace (1990). 25. See Gottschild (1996) for a discussion of AfricanistAesthetic. 26. This alignmentis consistent with other Westerndance techniques, such as ballet and modern dance. This aesthetic was used throughoutmuch of the twentieth century as justification for excluding black dancers-whose anatomy supposedly did not adhere to the aesthetics of straightbody lines-from ballet companies.A 1995 dance piece, BattyMoves, choreographed by Jawole Willa Jo Zollar for UrbanBush Women,capitalizeson this tension between requirements in Westerndance forms to hide the butt and celebrationof the butt in African dance and African diasporicdance and movement practices.According to their Web site, "Zollarchoreographed Batty Moves because she felt strongly that in Euro-Americanmodes of training, specifically ballet and moder idioms, dancers'buttocks were drainedof movement, poetry, and passion.... The piece is inspiredby movements of the butt: several of the movements are initiated with or end with the butt, whereas others transformtraditionalmovements from the moder dance vocabularyby substitutingthe erect spine and aligned pelvis for more curved lines of the back" (UrbanBush Women 2000). 27. See, for example, their first appearancein Hollywood films in the 1937 Marx Brothersfilm A Day at the Races. 28. Particularthanks to dancesportcompetitors Daniel Vasco, Dedelle Barbanti,Maria Torres, Jorge Geronimo,and CharletonAlicia for sharingtheir ideas on this subject with me. Works Cited Bhabha. Homi K. 1990. 'The Other Question: Difference, Discrimination and the Discourse of Colonialism." In Out There: Marginalization and ContemporaryCultures. Edited by Russell Ferguson,MarthaGever,TrinhT. Minh-ha,and CornelWest, 71-87. New York:The New Museum

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of ContemporaryArt/Cambridge,MA: The MIT Press. Boggs, VernonW., ed. 1992. Salsiology: Afro-CubanMusic and the Evolutionof Salsa in New YorkCity. New York:GreenwoodPress. Browning, Barbara.1995. Samba: Resistance in Motion. Bloomington: IndianaUniversity Press. Butler,Judith. 1990. Gender Trouble:Feminismand the Subversionof Identity.New York:Routledge. "Dance WithMe: The Movie." 1988. Dance Beat, eighth year, ed. 0898. Daniel, Yvonne. 1995. Rumba: Dance and Social Change in ContemporaryCuba. Bloomington: IndianaUniversity Press. Dyer, Richard. 1997. White.New York:Routledge. Foster, Susan Leigh. 1996. Choreography & Narrative: Ballet's Staging of Story and Desire. Bloomington: IndianaUniversity Press. Fusco, Coco. 1995. English is BrokenHere: Notes on CulturalConfusionin the Americas. New York: The New Press. Gottschild,BrendaDixon. 1996. Digging theAfricanistPresence in AmericanPerformance:Dance and Other Contexts.Westport,CT: GreenwoodPress. .1997. "Some Thoughts on ChoreographingHistory."In Meaning in Motion: New Cultural Studies of Dance. Edited by Jane C. Desmond, 167-177. Durham,NC: Duke University Press. Green, RichardC. 2000. "Doin' Da Butt: Performance,Race, and Black Bodies," paper presented at Dancing in the Millennium Conference,Washington,DC, 22 July. Lipsitz, George. 1994. Dangerous Crossroads: Popular Music, Postmodernism,and the Poetics of Place. New York:Verso. Lott, Eric. 1993. Love & Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American WorkingClass. New York: Oxford University Press. Malnig, Julie. 2001. "Two-Steppingto Glory: Social Dance and the Rhetoric of Social Mobility."In Moving History/Dancing Cultures:A Dance History Reader. Edited by Ann Dils and Ann Cooper Albright,271-287. Middletown,CT: Wesleyan University Press. Originallypublishedin Etnofoor (1997), X (1/2): 128-150. Malone, Jacqui. 1996. Steppin'on the Blues: The VisibleRhythmsof AfricanAmericanDance. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. McMains, Juliet. 1999. "CorporealNegotiations in Ballroom and Latin Dance: The GlamourClass," paper presented at Congress on Research in Dance annual conference, "ChoreographicPolitics: TheatricalRepresentationsof the Body," Pomona, California,3 December. .2001. "'Latin'AmericanDance: Salseros and Ballroom Dancers,"paperpresentedat Congress on Research in Dance annual conference, "TransmigratoryMoves: Dance in Global Circulation,"New YorkCity, 27 October. Mizejewski, Linda. 1997. Ziegfeld Girl: Image and Icon in Cultureand Cinema. Durham,NC: Duke University Press. Murray,Arthur.1942. How to Become a Good Dancer New York:Simon & Schuster. .1959. How to Become a Good Dancer. New York:Simon & Schuster. Omi, Michael and HowardWinant. 1994. Racial Formationin the United Statesfrom the 1960s to the 1990s. New York:Routledge. Richardson,Philip J. S. 1946. A History of English Ballroom Dancing (1910-45). London: Herbert Jenkins,Ltd.

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Robinson, Danielle. 2001. "Fromthe TurkeyTrot to the One Step: The CulturalPolitics of American RagtimeDancing,"paperpresentedat the Society of Dance History ScholarsConference,Towson, MD, 24 June. Roediger, David R. 1991. The Wages of Whiteness:Race and the Making of the American Working Class. New York:Verso. Said, Edward. 1978. Orientalism.New York:Vintage Books. Santos Febres,Mayra. 1997. "Salsaas Translocation."In EverynightLife: Cultureand Dance in Latin/o America. Edited by Celeste Frazer Delgado and Jose Esteban Munoz, 175-188. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Savigliano, Marta. 1994. Tango:the Political Economy of Passion. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Scott, Anna Beatrice. 1997. "Spectacleand Dancing Bodies thatMatter:Or If It Don't Fit, Don't Force It." In Meaning in Motion. Edited by Jane C. Desmond, 259-268. Durham,NC: Duke University Press. Torres,Maria.2001. Phone interview by author.23 August. UrbanBush Women Homepage, 23 October2000. . Vermey,Ruud. 1994. Latin: Thinking,Sensing and Doing in LatinAmericanDancing. Munich:Kastell Verlag. Vianna,Hermano. 1999. The Mysteryof Samba: Popular Music and National Identityin Brazil; trans. and ed. by John CharlesChasteen.Chapel Hill: University of North CarolinaPress. in Afro-American PrVisualof the Wallace,Michele. 1990. "Modernism,Postmodernismand the Problem Culture."In Out There:Marginalizationand ContemporaryCultures.Editedby Russell Ferguson, Martha Gever, Trinh T. Minh-ha, and Cornel West, 39-49. New York. The New Museum of ContemporaryArt/Cambridge,MA: The MIT Press.

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