Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-jr42d Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-18T22:17:38.042Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Orientalized Aztecs: Observations on the Americanization of Theatrical Dance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 August 2019

K. Mitchell Snow
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The opening decades of the twentieth century saw a passing fashion for “Aztec” dancing in the vaudeville theaters of the United States. Russian classical dancers Kosloff and Fokine tapped the orientalist currents of the Ballets Russes, adopting the Aztec as superficial signs of the American. Conversely, works by Shawn and film director Cecil B. DeMille, which served as points of reference for the Russians, represented a continuation of equally orientalist attitudes toward Mexico's past, forged during the realization of the United States’ policy of Manifest Destiny. The emergence of a cadre of trained dancers from Mexico, trained by students of Kosloff and Shawn, would bring a distinctively different perspective on the presentation of their heritage to the dance stage, one that was no longer based in the imagination of an expansionist America.

Keywords

Archaeological MonroismCecil B. DeMilleMikhail FokineVera FokinaManifest DestinyWilliam H. PrescottTed ShawnLew Wallace
Type
Articles
Information
Dance Research Journal , Volume 51 , Issue 2 , August 2019 , pp. 35 - 50
Copyright
Copyright © Dance Studies Association 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Aguilar-Moreno, Manuel. 2006. Handbook to Life in the Aztec World. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Artcraft Studios Press Book: Exploitation and Publicity Accessories, ‘The Woman God Forgot.’ 1917. New York: Artcraft Studios. Accessed March 20, 2018. https://archive.org/details/paramountpressbo01unse/page/n239?q=%22Woman+God+Forgot%22.Google Scholar
Aulestia, Patricia. 1987. “Nellie Campobello.” Cuadernos del CID DANZA 15: 1–34.Google Scholar
Aulestia, Patricia. 2003. Las “chicas bien” de Miss Carroll: estudio y Ballet Carroll (1923–1964). México: Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes.Google Scholar
Aulestia, Patricia. 2012. Despertar de la república dancística mexicana. México: Ríos de Tinta.Google Scholar
Aulestia, Patricia. 2013. Historias alucinantes de un mundo Ecléctico. La danza en México, 1910–1939. México: Impresos Chávez.Google Scholar
“Aztec Dance Coming, Says Famous Dancer.” 1917. Artcraft Advance 1 (16) (November 12): 10. Accessed March 25, 2019. https://books.google.com/books?id=tVpJAQAAMAAJ.Google Scholar
“Ballet and Ice Carnival Features at Hippodrome.” 1921. The New York Tribune, September 5, 6.Google Scholar
Bartlett, Randolph. 1918. “The Shadow Stage: The Woman God Forgot.” Photoplay: The Aristocrat of Motion Picture Magazines 13 (2) (January): 66–67.Google Scholar
Beaumont, Cyril W. 1935. Michel Fokine & His Ballets. London: C. W. Beaumont.Google Scholar
Birchard, Robert S. 2004. Cecil B. DeMille's Hollywood. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky.Google Scholar
Chavero, Alfredo. 1884. Historia antigua y de la conquista. Vol. 1 of México a través de los siglos, edited by Palacio, Vicente Riva. México: Ballescá y compañía.Google Scholar
Covarrubias, Miguel. (1952) 2002. “Florecimiento de la danza.” Reprinted in Danza en México: visiones de cinco siglos, Volume II, Antología: cinco siglos de crónicas, critica y documentos (1521–2002), edited by Smith, Maya Ramos and Lang, Patricia Cardona, 409–424. México: Centro Nacional de Investigación, Documentación e Información de la Danza José Limón.Google Scholar
“Crown Jewels of Spain in ‘Woman God Forgot.’” 2017. Artcraft Advance 1 (16) (July 30): 6.Google Scholar
Delpar, Helen. 1992. The Enormous Vogue of Things Mexican: Cultural Relations Between the United States and Mexico, 1920–1935. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press.Google Scholar
DeMille, Cecil B, dir. 1917. The Woman God Forgot (DVD). Moraga, CA: Silent Hall of Fame Enterprises, 2016.Google Scholar
Denishawn Dancers. 1926. New York: Aeolian Hall. Souvenir Program.Google Scholar
Evans, R. Tripp. 2004. Romancing the Maya: Mexican Antiquity in the American Imagination 1820–1915. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Fair, Charles. 1918. “Costuming a Cinema Spectacle.” Motion Picture Magazine 14 (12) (January): 47–50.Google Scholar
Franchot, Jenny. 1994. Roads to Rome: The Antebellum Protestant Encounter with Catholicism. Berkeley: University of California Press. Accessed April 4, 2018. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft1x0nb0f3/.Google Scholar
Garafola, Lynn. (1989) 1998. Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. New York: DaCapo Press.Google Scholar
Garafola, Lynn. 2005. Legacies of Twentieth-Century Dance. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.Google Scholar
Graham, Martha. 1991. Blood Memory. New York: Doubleday.Google Scholar
Gutiérrez, Ramón A. 1999. “Crucifixion, Slavery, and Death: The Hermanos Penitentes of the Southwest.” In Over the Edge: Remapping the American West, edited by Matsumoto, Valerie J. and Allmendinger, Blake, 253–267. Berkeley: University of California Press. Accessed April 6, 2018. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft8g5008gq/Google Scholar
“Hawaiian Music Universally Popular.” 1916. The Edison Phonograph Monthly 14 (9) (September): 3–4.Google Scholar
Hobsbawm, Eric J. 2012. Nations and Nationalism Since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Horwitz, Dawn Lille. 1985. Michel Fokine. Boston: Dwayne Publishers.Google Scholar
Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival Eleventh Season 1952 Ninth Week. 1952. Jacob's Pillow Archives. Program. Accessed May 1, 2018. http://archives.jacobspillow.org/index.php/Detail/objects/4798.Google Scholar
Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival Season of 1942, 6th Program, Saturday August 15. 1942. Jacob's Pillow Archives. Program. Accessed April 11, 2018. http://archives.jacobspillow.org/index.php/Detail/objects/4698.Google Scholar
Kendall, Elizabeth. 1979. Where She Danced: The Birth of American Art-dance. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
King, Frederick A. 1916. “Legends of the Ballets.” In Souvenir Serge de Diaghileff's Ballet Russe. New York: Morris Gest. Program.Google Scholar
“Kosloff Now Happy.” 1917. Los Angeles Times, September 9, Section III, 22.Google Scholar
Lancos, Jonette. 2007. Reclaiming Charles Weidman (1901–1975): An American Dancer's Life and Legacy. Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press.Google Scholar
Levin, David. (1959) 1995. History as Romantic Art: Bancroft, Prescott, Motley, and Parkman. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Accessed April 27, 2018. http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/LEVIN/levcol.html.Google Scholar
Levine, Debra. 2009. “Theodore Kosloff Cut a Fouette Figure.” Los Angeles Times, April 5. Accessed March 23, 2018. http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-ca-kosloff5-2009apr05-story.html.Google Scholar
Libbey, Len. 1918. “Boston.” Variety 49 (12) (February 15): 38.Google Scholar
Limón, José. 1951. “The Making of Tonanzintla.” Dance Magazine 25 (8): 12–15.Google Scholar
López Orozco, Leticia. 2010. “Salvador Almaraz y su epopeya mural.” Crónicas. El muralismo, producto de la Revolución Mexicana, en América 14: 85–110.Google Scholar
“Miss Shaughnessy Appears With Dancers.” 2017. Deseret News, October 25, 14.Google Scholar
“Mollie King at the Palace.” 2018. The New York Times, January 22, 9.Google Scholar
Morris, Michael. 1991. Madam Valentino: The Many Lives of Natacha Rambova. New York: Abbeville Press.Google Scholar
Murphy, Jacqueline Shea. 2007. The People Have Never Stopped Dancing: Native American Modern Dance Histories. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
“O, Libertad!” by Ted Shawn and his Men Dancers. 1938. Lenox, MA: Annual Berkshire Symphonic Festival. Program. Accessed April 28, 2018. http://springfieldcollege.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15370coll2/id/15873/.Google Scholar
Medina, Ortega y, Juan. 1962. Ensayos, tareas, y estudios históricos. Xalapa: Universidad Veracruzana.Google Scholar
Parker, Robert L. 1985. “Carlos Chávez and the Ballet: A Study in Persistence.” Dance Chronicle 8 (3–4): 179–210.Google Scholar
Prescott, William H. (1843) 1936. History of the Conquest of Mexico. New York: The Modern Library.Google Scholar
Prevots, Naima. 1987. Dancing in the Sun: Hollywood Choreographers, 1915–1937. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Research Press.Google Scholar
Pritchard, Jane. 2013. “A Giant that Continues to Grow: The Impact, Influence and Legacy of the Ballets Russes.” In Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes, 1909–1929, When Art Danced With Music, edited by Pritchard, Jane, 205–222. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art.Google Scholar
“Pueblo Indian Languages.” n.d. Native Languages of the Americas: Preserving and Promoting American Indian Languages. Accessed April 10, 2018. http://www.native-languages.org/pueblo.htm.Google Scholar
de la Hoz, Rodriguez, Pamela, Monica. 2014. “A Forgotten Composer and His Music: Two Viola Compositions by Arends.” PhD. diss. Louisiana State University: Baton Rouge.Google Scholar
Said, Edward W. [1978] 1980. Orientalism. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Schlundt, Christena L. 1962. Professional Appearances of Ruth St. Denis & Ted Shawn: A Chronology and an Index of Dances, 1906–1932. New York: The New York Public Library.Google Scholar
Scolieri, Paul A. 2013. Dancing the New World: Aztecs, Spaniards, and the Choreography of Conquest. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Shawn, Ted. 1920. Ruth St. Denis, Pioneer & Prophet: Being a History of Her Cycle of Oriental Dances. San Francisco: Printed for John Howell by John Henry Nash.Google Scholar
Shawn, Ted. 1926. The American Ballet. New York: Henry Holt.Google Scholar
Shawn, Ted. 1960. One Thousand One Night Stands. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.Google Scholar
Sherman, Jane. 1979. The Drama of Denishawn Dance. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.Google Scholar
Sherman, Jane. 1989. “The American Indian Imagery of Ted Shawn.” Dance Chronicle 12 (3): 366–382.Google Scholar
Sherman, Jane, and Mumaw, Barton. 2000. Barton Mumaw, Dancer: From Denishawn to Jacob's Pillow and Beyond. Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press.Google Scholar
Snow, K. Mitchell. 2017. “Martha Graham, Mexico, and the American Gesture.” Dance Chronicle 40 (1): 1–24.Google Scholar
St. Denis, Ruth. 1939. An Unfinished Life. New York: Harper Brothers.Google Scholar
“The Stage and the Screen.” 1917. Salt Lake Tribune, October 21, 66–67.Google Scholar
Stephens, John L. (1841) 1848. Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan. Vol. 1. 12th ed. New York: Harper and Brothers. Accessed March 23, 2019. https://archive.org/details/incidentstravel02stepgoog/page/n10.Google Scholar
“Supreme Dancing Act of World Headlines New Show at Orpheum.” 1917. Salt Lake Telegram, October 23, 10.Google Scholar
Tenorio-Trillo, Mauricio. 1996. Mexico at the World's Fairs: Crafting a Modern Nation. Berkeley: University of California Press. Accessed December 31, 2014. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft2k4004k4/Google Scholar
Terry, Walter. 1971. The Dance in America. New York: Harper and Row Publishers.Google Scholar
“Theodore Kosloff at the Orpheum Thursday.” 1917. Daily Nebraskan, November 7, 3.Google Scholar
Tortajada Quiroz, Margarita. 2008a. Danza y Poder. 2 vols. México: Conaculta-INBA-Cenart, Biblioteca Digital Cenidi Danza. Accessed January 3, 2017. http://cenididanza.inba.gob.mx/PublicacionesBD/MTortajada/index.html.Google Scholar
Tortajada Quiroz, Margarita. 2008b. “La Coronela de Waldeen: una danza revolucionaria.” Casa del Tiempo 1 (8) (junio): 54–60.Google Scholar
Tortajada Quiroz, Margarita. 2013. “Guillermo Arriaga, aferrado a su tierra y a su danza.” In Lazos y ecos de la obra de Miguel Covarrubias. Arriaga, Castro, Sagaón, edited by Quiroz, Margarita Tortajada, Maria de Jesús Ángel, Rodríguez, and Lynton, Anadel, 27–113. México: Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura.Google Scholar
“U.S. Involvement in the Mexican Revolution.” n.d. The Mexican Revolution and the United States in the Collections of the Library of Congress. Library of Congress. Accessed April 4, 2018. http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/mexican-revolution-and-the-united-states/us-involvement-in-the-revolution.html.Google Scholar
Wallace, Lew. (1873) 1898. The Fair God: A Tale of the Conquest of Mexico. 2 vols. Boston: Houghton Mifflin and Company.Google Scholar
Weeks, William Earl. 1996. Building the Continental Empire: American Expansion from the Revolution to the Civil War. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, Inc.Google Scholar
Woollcott, Alexander. 1921. “The Play.” The New York Times, September 5, 15.Google Scholar