Revolution of Forms: Cuba’s Forgotten Art Schools

Loomis, John A. Revolution of Forms: Cuba’s Forgotten Art Schools. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999.

If I could afford it, I would buy John Loomis’ wonderful Revolution of Forms: Cuba’s Forgotten Art Schools, a historical analysis of Cuba’s National Art Schools. I first picked it up because Alma Guillermoprieto cited it as a source for understanding the architectural goals of the schools she had had such an unfortunate experience teaching modern dance in. (My dissertation chapter centers around her memoir about her experiences in Cuba.) However, Loomis’ text is much more than an architectural analysis. As Gerardo Mosquera notes in the Introduction, “I would venture to say that we are at the beginning of an ‘architectural novel'” (xxix). Loomis not only is informed about the architectural styles, histories, and major players at the time, but he also make the effort to connect ideological and cultural movements. The effect is a book that includes detailed accounts of the development of cubanidad in Cuba, the history of architecture on the island, the idealistic goals of the Revolution, and lastly, the changing relationship between Cuba and the Soviet Union that influenced these marvelous, but much forgotten, buildings.

In early 1961, Fidel Castro and Che Guevara designated the old Country Club Park as the site for the development of the arts in revolutionary Cuba. What developed were the National Art Schools’ five distinct building spaces for Modern Dance, Plastic Arts, Dramatic Arts, Music, and Ballet. The main architects were Ricardo Porro, a Cuban architect, and two Italian architects, Roberto Gottardi and Vittorio Garatti. Under Porro’s ideological direction, the goal was to create buildings that had social merit and reflected Cuban tradition. Porro took a cue from the negrista perspective, or the idea that Cuba’s heritage was largely influence by the African cultures present on the island. Like other artists and intellectuals of this time, the task was to synthesize Spanish and African influences in a way that reflected the true nature of cubanidad – but always in the service of the Revolution. They did this by utilizing the Catalan vault and African village model (circular and unified), while also using brick, a readily found material readily on the island. They also took advantage of situating the buildings within the green landscape set up by the former country club and golf course.

What they produced were unique buildings that sought to create an energy reflective of the time.  For Porro, this included anxiety and confusion in addition to excitement and creativity. He noted, “In the School of Modern Dance I wanted to express  two very powerful sentiments produced by the first stage, the romantic stage, of the Revolution: the exaltation, collective emotional explosion, but at the same time a sense of anguish and fear confronting an unknown future” (as quoted in Loomis, 43). He did this by creating an entrance with three large, open Catalan vaults that looked as if they were full of wind that stood juxtaposed to the entrances to the main areas inside (classrooms, plaza, performance hall, etc). The effect was a lifted, expansive area that also disoriented the person walking in it. Porro said, “When the dancer leaps, the surrounding space expands – explodes – around him. And this is what I tried to create in the interior of the dance pavilions. But at the same time the sensation of explosion was that of the emotional explosion that the country was living at the moment” (as quoted in Loomis, 43). Like many of the buildings, the plans were created in just a few months, as Fidel wanted to quickly show the grand effects of the Revolution to the international community.

The design and construction of the buildings went quickly but by 1965, only four years after conception, the buildings became the example of ideological attacks. First, the Catalan vaults were deemed unsafe, even though they had been approved previously. Second, the architects and the conditions they worked in (lush country club grounds) was seen as privileged and unproletarian. Likewise, the architects were questioned for their revolutionary credentials because they did not come from the working class, but had more bourgeoisie credentials. Underlying this was a mistrust of the Afro-Cuban elements that had been incorporated into the structures, from the circular, cellular patterns, to the more distinct buildings like the School of Plastic Arts that took cues from the idealized “mulatta body” including a papaya fountain and nipple-like domes.

This all happened also as the Soviet Union’s Khrushchev declared prefabricated concrete buildings as the idea of the communist agenda. As Loomis notes, “Again, it must be born in mind that the National Art Schools were first conceived and for the most part constructed before any such system appeared upon the island and before a truly intimate relationship with the USSR had developed” (119). Thus, the schools became symbolic of an “historicist” and individualistic take on Cuba that was undermined by the USSR’s universal communist perspective. As noted in the introduction, Loomis take the time to connect these buildings with a little explored time in the Cuban Revolution: the 1970s. This seems to mark a shift in what the Revolution could bear ideologically and materially, making way for switches in favor, not only for the schools, but for all artists (and homosexuals, and anyone not of the ideal proletariat background).

In July 26, 1965, the schools were declared finished even though they were only partly completed. The modern Dance and Plastic Arts compounds were finished, but the Ballet school was left mostly done but rejected by Alicia Alonso (she famously worked with the architects, then saw the finished product and said, “no me gusta” and never came back).  Now, some of the buildings are still in use by the schools, but being much ignored by the government, the buildings are in disrepair, and given in part to the surrounding jungle. Porro went to live in Paris, self-exiled in a way after being the scapegoat for the final evaluation of the art schools.

The final chapters of Loomis’ book connect the schools with other modernisms in art and architecture around Europe and the Americas. In this way, he places Cuba’s attitude toward the schools in with other countries who were trying to incorporate “other” ethnic models into their architecture. Loomis quotes Guilio Carlo Argan who wrote, “The historical problem was not the Negro sculpture but the crisis in European culture, which was forced to look outside its own circle to find value models” (as quoted in Loomis, 143). This crisis of looking at new value models did not always lead to a comfortable use of African methods or ontology, which often include more unified and holistic approaches in contrast with the duality or binary of Western culture. Nonetheless, Loomis contends that Cuban architecture, and these schools in particular, represent one of the best attempts at balancing the two systems. “Within this intellectual framework, Ricardo Porro’s interpretation and editing of the Afro-Cuban experience makes perfect sense, if we accept that it is an act of interpretation and editing…” (144). Loomis’ book provides a clear and well-researched account of how the schools represent an “interpretation and editing” of the Afro-Cuban experience, trying to show the challenges the Revolution faced in trying to uplift and support artistic and architectural communities.

 

The Distance Between Us

Grande, Reyna. The Distance Between Us: A Memoir. New York: Atria Books, 2012.

Perhaps because I am the mother of a one and a half year old, and perhaps because I feel vulnerable due to income, future work, and stability, I took this memoir very much to heart. Grande paints such vivid pictures of her childhood in Mexico, particularly of her family relationships and their poor living conditions. Grande and her older sister and brother (Mago and Carlos) lived with their paternal, and then maternal, grandmothers while the parents were in “El Otro Lado” trying to make money to send home. Eventually, the parents return, and later the father takes the children to the U.S.

As far as an immigrant memoir, Grade depicts many of the conditions others make: economic uncertainty, young parents, difficult crossing, and culture shock in the U.S. What then stands out most are the parents and the relationships between the siblings. As the title suggests, the “distance between us” is the strained relationship between Reyna, her siblings, and the choices their parents make. At first the parents are together through the crossing, working for a few years to better their situation in Mexico. But, then the father leaves the mother for a Mexican American woman with citizenship, and the mother comes back to Mexico. Unfortunately, the mother has little prospects for work to feed her four children (Betty was born in the US) and abandons her children, and then returns, in an ugly cycle that scars her children. Eventually, the father returns for them and takes care of them (minus Betty, who ironically is the only one with citizenship in the U.S.).

Their lives in the U.S. are still difficult, as they are living with their step-mother and father, who drinks and is abusive. Nonetheless, the two adults have full-time work, and own the apartment building they live in. The children grow up with opportunities for school, college, jobs, and cars – but the emotional scars come to bear on their lives still. For Reyna, she is able to make it to college, where she finds a mentor just as her family breaks apart. Her siblings start families, move out, and disconnect. The step-mother also leaves the father because of a subsequent affair. Reyna is left uncertain about whether to care for him or to go forward with a college education. Education was something the father cared about deeply, so with the help of a mentor, Reyna takes the steps to go to college and make her own way – away from her family.

I think what was most vivid for me were the scenes of poverty and abuse set in the context of family and duty. These children love their parents and it broke my heart to think of any children who are drawn apart from their parents due to economic migration. However, Grande sympathizes with the parents by including details that show how this stress created very awful parents and family relationships. She tells of a cousin who, although in a similar situation, flaunted her mother’s wealth, because the mother never returned for her. Or her paternal grandmother who kept them malnourished and emotionally distant because she was over-worked caring for four grandchildren. While every person is understandably at the end of the abilities to cope with intense and stressful situations, I felt the pain of the children when seeing their parents abandon them or abuse them. The abuse is terrible, and yet, love is still there. It is an important look at families who have undergone this type of migration, and the narrative raises many questions: is the move to the U.S. worth the emotional stress? How does one sacrifice/give best to family? Is citizenship worth physical and emotional abuse? In some ways, Grande suggests that it is. She’s grateful for her life in the U.S. and reconciles with the father (somewhat with the mother), and knows that they may not have even survived in Mexico. But, what to do with those effects of abuse?

I think the suggestion is to write, to tell stories, to find community. Grande does just that with this memoir, but not without being as honest as possible. To that end, it’s a wonderful memoir and read.

The Dance Has Many Faces

The Dance Has Many Faces. Ed. Walter Sorell. 3rd edition. Chicago, IL: a cappella books, 1992.

I had seen the title of this anthology on dance in many other sources, and thought it might be wise to look it up. While it has a great many pieces from important dancers, choreographers, dance critics, and lovers of the dance world from the 1900s-1990s, there was little here to help my current research on modern dance and Cuba.

Nonetheless, I thought it might be good to summarize what this anthology does offer for a future time. This updated version (the original published in 1951) has three sections: 1940, 1960, and 1990. In this way, there is a lot of archived information about the trajectory of dance in the U.S. (and abroad by the 1990s section). The writing is by the big names in the fields of modern dance, ballet, and post-modern/contemporary dance. Of interest to me was the writings by Ruth St. Denis, Doris Humphrey, Hanya Holm, Charles Weidman who all seem to write about the transformative nature of modern dance and movement. Yet, I did not want to photocopy or archive much of it, only Charles Weidman’s essay, for the writing itself is dreamy, unspecific, and almost religious in tone. Not that these are not important, just not quite helpful for my work at the moment.

What will be archived for my research files is the essay by dance critic Walter Terry called “Favorable Balance of Trade” which discusses how the 1960s/70s are an intense time of exchange of dance; an account of Pauline Kroner that gives backward and forward glances to the development of modern dance; and Murray Louis’ “100 Years of Dance” which gives an interesting perspective on the relationship between history and art. These works will be good at contextualizing my work on modern dance, while also providing great quotes by important people in the dance world.

Caribbean Dance From Abakuá to Zouk: How Movement Shapes Identity

Caribbean Dance From Abakuá to Zouk: How Movement Shapes Identity. Ed. Susanna Sloat. Gainesville, FL:University Press of Florida, 2002.

The focus of this anthology is tracing the African systems of movement (dance) through Caribbean and North American dances. It centers on the Caribbean, but argues carefully and with exceptional detail for the ways in which African dance and musicality have influenced the world.

The authors write on Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Martinique and Guadeloupe, Trinidad and Tobago, Curacao, and the US-Caribbean connection. Of interest to my current research were the articles on Cuba, in particular the one on Ramiro Guerra, the modern dance choreographer of Cuba. (Interestingly, of the three articles on Cuba in this anthology, two refer to modern dance. The first one is an overview of dance history in Cuba, with attention to African influences.) This article, “The Dance World of Ramiro Guerra: Solemnity, Voluptuousness, Humor, and Chance” by Melinda Mousouris (pgs, 56-72), paints Ramiro Guerra as an aging dancer and intellectual who lives on the border between being a hermit and cultural innovator. Mousouris gives the history of Guerra, his training, appointment as founding member of Conjunto Nacional de Danca Contemporánea, and his success in the 1960s. She also situates the 1970s as a time of “suspicion of contemporary dance” because “the artistic freedom of the 1960s was challenged when the ministry of culture placed control of performance companies in the ands of political officials, who knew little about art and perceived sedition in all they did not understand” (57). Of course, Guerra was creating his “magnum opus” the Décalogo, which was a dance re-presentation of the 10 commandments with edgy themes like sexuality and class. Famously, after a year of preparation, the presentation was canceled, and he was removed from his role on the Conjunto (although he retained his salary). This censorship resulted in Guerra’s immediate ending to choreography until the 1990s, but only in limited arrangements. Rather, he became a scholar and writer of dance history and anthropology in Cuba. It’s unclear where or if much of his work has been published, but Mousouris places Guerra endlessly in his small apartment, in the center of Havana, between his books and barre, continuing the wheel of técnica cubana.

This article is useful for its history, interview quotes, and general support of other pieces of Guerra I’ve encountered.

Sin Alas (film)

Sin Alas. Dir. Ben Chace. Perf. Carlos Padron, Yulislievis Rodriguez, Mario Limonta. Franklin Avenue Films, 2015.

This film by U.S. director Ben Chace is the first one since the Cuban Revolution in 1959 to be shot entirely in Cuba. What is even more remarkable is that the film was shot on an older form of film, a Super 16, that makes the shots grainy, but nostalgic which is perfect for the themes in the film.

It is the story of Luis Vargas, a journalist for Bohemia (the oldest magazine for Cuba and Latin America in real life), who falls in love with a modern dancer, Isabela Muñoz, in 1967. Isabel is married to a commander in the Revolution, who catches them in bed together one night. Luis runs out, never to see her again (and to subsequently lose his job).

The movie’s narrative starts with Luis reading her obituary in the newspaper, which sets off a labyrinth of memories, melodies, and trails that lead him and his friend, Ovilio, through Havana. The movie is inspired by Borges’ short stories, as well as by the poetry of José Lezama Lima.

This artistic film includes many layers, but of interest to me is the representation of a modern dancer, the Revolution, and love. It’s interesting to me that Chace chooses modern dance, not ballet or even Afro-Cuban folkloric dance, which might be more recognizable as Cuban. In choosing modern dance, the film puts forth the most avant garde of the dances sponsored by the Revolution – and the one understood the least by Revolution officials. Unfortunately, her husband, represents this mis-understanding.

In one important scene, Luis, Isabela, and her husband and his revolucionario friends discuss the use of dance and art after her performance. The revolucionarios compliment Isabel on her hard work and dedication to the performance, but admit that they are not sure what the common person will understand about the narrative. The dance places a male and female dancer in white leotards, dancing together in sensual motion. A mob of other dancers in black leotards attempt to pull them apart. Isabel’s husband attempts to explain that audiences can glean the love relationship is important, but moreover, that it took skill and hard work to put it together. Despite his attempt to defend his wife, he also does not let her speak for herself. Ironically, Luis steps in to defend not only Isabela’s performance, but all art. (And she falls for him here.) His point is that art, especially abstract modern dance, requires the audience member to reflect not only the performance to figure it out, but also on his/her own life. Therefore, it brings the audience to a new level of appreciation and critical reflection needed in society.

Metaphorically, Luis could represent the intellectual, Isabela, the artist/dancer; and the husband, the Revolution. I am not sure why the artist and intellectual are separated, if only to highlight Isabela as the beauty of Cuba as well. She is a beautiful and graceful, none of which is missed by the camera. Nonetheless, she doesn’t get to express herself other than through dance and lovemaking.

But, I am confused as why Chace would opt to center his film around modern dance. In one way, the film asks: “Is dance a revolutionary act?” This is the center of my chapter on Cuba in the dissertation too and a good question. But the films intertwines the artistic discussion with three tales of love. Perhaps the larger question is, “Is love(making) a revolutionary act?” Nonetheless, in this film, modern dance is revolutionary but not of the Cuban Revolution. It does not seek to replace the Revolution, but rather to resist complete control of the revolucionarios who (admittedly) know little about the aim of art. Modern dance in Cuba makes room for the expression and reflection on life, and perhaps that’s the crux of revolutions: they do not require such.

Fierce Attachments: A Memoir by Vivian Gornick

Gornick, Vivian. Fierce Attachments: A Memoir. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1987.

This memoir was recommended to me by memoirist Daisy Hernández, as she said it was one of the most moving examples of the genre she had read. I was curious, so I picked it up. The Introduction, written by Jonathan Lethem, suggests the same. “Couldn’t I just say that you must read Vivian Gornick’s Fierce Attachments? That I am here to insist this book become a banner in the wide world, as it is a banner already in my mind, one I march behind? (v). Everyone was enamored with this book, and now I understand why.

Gornick’s prose is wonderful: full of metaphor, energy, and stillness. It could be a film. (In part, this is what I hope to describe in my dissertation: the way that images fill up my head when I read her scenes. Particularly in relation to the women like her mother and Nettie.)

But there’s something else about this memoir that might need to be explored. It is the intimacy and intensity of the story that comes through and surprises the reader. Even though the writer-memoirist might be able to detach from her story, and create a specific persona, the wonderful-amazing thing about good memoir is that the narrative is personally relevant and you experience this life story as intimately as you believe the author did. It is the perceived “realness” of memoir of this kind that makes memoir special; readers will then proclaim it is amazing, a classic, to be read by everyone.

I am struggling in my dissertation project to think through what memoir lends to a narrative about the dancing body that fiction might do differently. I think it is the sense of “real” but also that the real becomes a testimony: a way to say, I lived this, I witnessed it, and this is how it affects the inside of me (whether this be emotional or physical manifestations). When you witness something, you are changed by it. There are plenty of things you can see or observe, but if you are not changed by it, you cannot testify it. Perhaps that is why when people have to testify in court, it is usually to some crime or intense event that probably changed or affected them. Therefore, the memoir relates events, how ever mundane, that change and affected the writer, and thus, possibly the reader too. This change/affect teaches the reader something. And, if the subject material is about the body, it informs and forever alters the conception of the body. To do so to the body is to also alter someone’s identity. How could it not?

No quotes to take from this memoir. The entire narrative is wonderful and delicious to read (I read it in two settings). I’ll have to return to it for inspiration.

José Limón and La Malinche: The Dancer and the Dance

José Limón and La Malinche: The Dancer and the Dance. Ed. Patricia Seed. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2008.

This edited volume is special because it hones in on one important but unexplored aspect of José Limón’s career: the influence of his Mexican identity. This volume focuses this quest through one of his performance pieces, La Malinche.

The first two chapters, the “Introduction” by Patricia Seed and the first one “La Malinche: The Inspiration for the Dance” is a historical recounting of Malinche by Patty Harrington Delany, are helpful for contextual and historiographical information. These could be important if I needed to explain one of the most famous Mexican figures, next to the Virgin of Guadalupe.

Out of the eight chapters, the other two that are most compelling for my future work are the fifth, “Marina, Malinche, Malintzin: Nahua Women and the Spanish Conquest” by Susan Kellogg, and the seventh, “José Limón and La Malinche in Mexico: A Chicano Artist Returns Home” by Margarita Tortajada Quiroz.

Susan Kellogg writes a well-researched and interesting approach to the relationship between Malinche and the indigenous cultures, particularly of gender roles and political affiliations. This type of in-depth and careful analysis of the relationships between indigenous groups at the time seems to necessary to fleshing out the myth of the mestizo more in analysis of Mexican culture. It might be useful to me at a later date for this exact purpose.

The chapter by Margarita Tortajada Quiroz is the most important from this volume for my work. Quiroz chronicles the reasons, main players, and context for Limón’s debut in Mexico in 1950. Overall, she characterizes his re-entrance back into Mexico as important and mostly encouraged/praised. La Malinche was a heightened cultural symbol at that moment (Octavio Paz’s The labyrinth of solitude was published just a few years before) and audiences felt that Limón was paying tribute to Mexican themes, and others felt that the themes were treated with “childish” approaches. This might be because of modern dance’s austere and simple aesthetics, but it also speaks to the inability to see a Mexican American as relevant to Mexico/Mexicans.

This chapter includes a lot of names and interviews by people who were foundational to modern dance in the mid-twentieth century. It seems that Mexico was just beginning to take on modern dance in a serious way, and Limón motivated the state to fund a separate department to develop these themes. However, by the 1970s, it seems that these motivations died (at least from the state). I will need to copy this chapter for future, immediate reference if I decide to take my dissertation chapter toward more dance history.

A side note: I borrowed this book through the San Diego Circut lending program but it seems to have had an accompanying cd with performances on it. If I were to do future research, it’d be nice to find this cd to do a close reading of a performance of La Malinche. As it is, not many pictures are included.

Rita Moreno: A Memoir

Moreno, Rita. Rita Moreno: A Memoir. New York: Celebra, 2013.

Rita Moreno is a notable Latina figure in the U.S. Her contributions to the big and little screens, stage, and more, are clearly evident in her Emmys, Tony, Oscar, and Grammy. She is perhaps best known for her role as Anita in the film version of West Side Story.

This memoir is easy to read, and reminds me somewhat of Isabel Allende’s memoirs: the tone is genuine, lighthearted, and reflective. She gives a thorough account of her life from her birth in Puerto Rico, to her move to New York at age 6, and her remarkable rise to stardom in Hollywood over the 1940s and 1950s. Her continued work in children’s television, stage, and sitcoms over her later years is testament to her love and creativity through performance. Yet, the memoir includes some inside memories of Hollywood’s most famous actors, directors, and business people, which include Marlon Brando, her first love who drove her to attempt suicide. Moreno does not shy away from the details of her physical and psychological obsession with Brando, to her credit.

While I did not find much in the way of dance history per se, I did find a number of facts and information to keep for other chapters of my dissertation. They are as follows:

1. Rita Moreno, born in 1931 as Rosita Dolores Alverio, took the surname of her second step-father, and was given the name “Rita” after Rita Hayworth by casting agent, Bill Grady. He tells her that her name is “Too Italian” (90). So, he suggests Rita, and Moreno agrees. She had taken Spanish dance classes with Hayworth’s uncle, Paco, while a young girl in New York. A nice nod to citationality within Latina heritage.
2. Moreno repeats often in the memoir that dancing and performing bring her happiness – especially as a child. She is clear that she wanted to perform so heavily at a young age (supported by an enthusiastic mother). It allowed her to pretend to be someone else, to fake a persona to shake off the fear or self-doubt she felt. This might support or provide another example of a Latina who used performance to help adapt to the U.S. from Puerto Rico (Santiago, for my purposes).
3. In order to get into Hollywood, Moreno modeled herself after Elizabeth Taylor (clothing, hair, and makeup). She wanted to be the Hispanic Elizabeth Taylor.
4. NOTE: She refers to herself as “Hispanic” for most of the memoir until the later chapters, which coincide with the more recent past, when she switches to “Latina.” She doesn’t explain this shift, but it’s interesting nonetheless.
5. She does, however, complicate the large number of roles where she played an “ethnic maiden,” Indian girl, Arabic princess, etc. She decries that those where the roles she was offered most, and for a period of time, but recognizes how they contributed to her visibility, her persona as a small, timid girl, or contrastingly, as a spitfire Latin. It is obvious that she did not have a lot of choices, but also reveled in what it brought her: Hollywood fame.
6. Moreno describes the Golden Age of Hollywood with the same eyes she must have had as a young woman: wonderment and awe. It is clear that she was given access because she was young, naive, and beautiful, but she loved learning about the rich and famous. But, sometimes not: she describes horrible experiences with lecherous men, and the deteriorating effect fame and fortune had on some of these people.
7. Moreno describes a scene where she introduces herself to Ann Miller, a famous dancer. Miller asks Moreno what kind of dance she does and Moreno says, “It’s Spanish Dance.” Miller is silent. Moreno describes, “Yeah, it’s uh, you know it’s flamenco, sevillanas, pronounced “sevi-yah-nas.” Miller responds, “Sevi-what? Sevi-what-nas? I see! Like rumbas and tangos? Spanish stuff! Moreno: “(with a barely discernable sigh). Yess…Yes that’s kind of it….” (119). Conflation is the only explanation for this time period (1950s).
8. Moreno explains her role as Anita in West Side Story as, “The role of Anita in West Side Story is the epitome of the great ethnic role…While I had been balking all my life at playing stereotyped Hispanic roles in the movies, all of those Conchitas and Lolitas, I leaped at the opportunity to audition for the part of Anita. Anita was real! She was Puerto Rican, and she was fighting for her rights. She has plenty to say about what was wrong in America – and in the world” (183). I found this statement somewhat ironic, as she does not give much attention to PR after her initial childhood memories in the memoir. She mentions later that she did travel there periodically, but did not maintain relations with her family. Partly this is the fault of her mother (who abandoned a younger brother there and severed ties). Nonetheless, it speaks to the ability of Puerto Rican authors to have an authentic Puerto Rican identity away from the island through the larger narrative of Newyorkicans in the U.S. It is distinct from Mexicans, for example, who are always enemies of the state. Puerto Ricans seems to occupy (for better and worse) a cousin-relationship to the U.S. that creates authenticity (at least in these memoirs) but also invisibility or conflated-ness.
9. Moreno calls the movie of West Side Story a “revolution, especially given the excitement of the choreography. Nothing like this had been done on film before. The reviews for the movie were ecstatic. One famous New York Times critic, Bosley Crowther, praised me in particular – but I was a bit crushed to see that he fell back on my leave favorite cliche: ‘Spitfire'” (188). I would like to return to the idea of this choreography as “revolutionary.” Most of the choreography was by Jerry Robbins, although he did not finish the movie (too demanding). And, of course, all the Puerto Ricans were in brown paint.
10. Moreno describes one of her later roles: Googie. It was 1975 and she played an awful lounge singer Googie Gomez in the farce The Ritz by Terrence McNally. It sounds like this character was the epitome of the Latina spitfire. Moreno describes this role with affection, as it was fun to be exaggerated and funny, but she later seems somewhat embarrassed at the character. Nonetheless, she on a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for it. I will file this name for later research, as there seems to be a need for more discussion in how Moreno furthered stereotypes at different points in her career (and what effects or citations that might have).

Overall, this memoir was an interesting read, with lots of attention to the work it took (takes) to be a celebrity of Puerto Rican heritage in the U.S. Moreno gives her readers her honest memories, empathy for herself and others, and a legacy that is unmatched.

More than Just a Footnote: Dancing from Connecticut to Revolutionary Cuba

Burdsall, Lorna. More than Just a Footnote: Dancing from Connecticut to Revolutionary Cuba.Quebec, Canada: AGMV Marquis, 2001.

Lorna Burdsall is a well-known modern dancer from Connecticut who married a pre-Cuban Revolutionary, Manuel Piñeiro. Burdsall went on to live in Cuba during the birth of the Revolution, and subsequently worked hard to contribute to the modern dance movement on the island.

Her memoir is well-written and an interesting reflection on very important and influential historical movements: early 1920s northeast culture, the development modern dance in the 1940s and 50s, and of course, the course of the Cuban Revolution and aftermath for artists and intellectuals. She writes with a genuine love for dance and Cuba. Although it might be the opposite, it does not feel like she is crafting a persona very different from what must be reality. In fact, as the narrative progresses, it is clear that she might be, at most, crafting the story and herself toward the image of her mother (who becomes a lovable character throughout): someone who is creative, hard-working, and spunky – if also a bit blind to her own biases and agendas.

Burdsall is not a social revolutionary in the sense that she does not show a commitment to racial and social change in and of itself. She of course supports the betterment of society, and is outraged by injustice, but the narrative she gives seems to focus more on her love of Manuel and modern dance, and then later  her vision of Cuba and modern dance. That is to say, there are uncomfortable moments where her privilege undermines her credibility as a participant in an event, or even smacks of deliberate obliviousness, but she always aims to better herself and learn throughout the process.

What this book does provide is a distinct reflection on modern dance. Burdsall becomes involved in dance as a young girl, and due to her mother’s love of performance and theatre, she is exposed to dance and performance with regular trips to New York. By late 1953 she moves herself to New York (post BA degree) and commits herself to taking classes in modern dance from Graham, Cunningham, and Limón. She meets Manuel in this period, and after a short romance, they marry and she moves to Cuba. She is able to still take classes with these masters with a few trips to New York and Connecticut (where the modern dance summer festival had moved). Once the Revolution begins in earnest, however, she is pregnant and thrown into a whirlwind life where she is hiding arms, missing her husband, planting bombs, and communicating secret messages.

It is her love for Manuel that drives her to act in service of the Revolution, which is nothing to dismiss easily. As a reader, you have to believe that their love is so true that it can withstand so much danger, secrecy, and courage. And if she loves her husband this much, she must love the Revolution similarly. This is how I see it anyhow. She supports the romantic and ideal elements of the revolution, which he in turn supports in her independence and commitment to dance. It is in the years following the revolution that distance comes between Manuel and Lorna, as well as between the ideals of the Revolution and perhaps too, modern dance.

While Burdsall never quite reaches the existential crisis Guillermoprieto does in Dancing with Cuba, there is some amount of dismay between what the Revolutionary government says it is willing to support, and what it actually supports. Burdsall is at the forefront of the development of modern dance just after the Revolution, in part because she is the wife of Piñeiro and in part because she is one of the more qualified dancers on the island at that time. But, as she is given more responsibility, it seems her ideas about dance develop into a more thoughtful and mature approach – rather than expressive aesthetic that she likes as a young woman.

The start of the memoir does not include much reflection on actual dance moves, but the final quarter of the memoir does. She takes the time to describe her burgeoning company, Así Somos, that is run out of her own living room. This dance company, comprised of young Cuban dancers, sounds eccentric but helpful, as it provides a space for more improvisation and development of modern dance ideas. However, what could be observed by Burdsall about race and class elements is elided for her descriptions of costumes and movements all toward her development. It would have been helpful to have her describe how these productions/pieces reflected Cuba, or the dancers, or the Revolution more. Instead, she seems to put her own narrative first in these dances, having her students dance with her mother’s civil war costumes or other north east memorabilia. At first, it seems a little strange (almost imperialistic) but it also speaks to the way modern dance in Cuba had always pulled in foreign elements (from the U.S. or otherwise). Plus, it IS her memoir. As the title suggests, she is making textual space for herself to be “more than just a footnote” in another biography or memoir.

I appreciate Burdsall’s memoir because it sheds light on the development of modern dance, the Cuban Revolution, and a woman’s experience of these histories. She is refreshingly frank about the body, a woman’s role, and family relationships. I am unsure of how I want this memoir to contribute to my Cuba chapter, but I think it will be an important source for information on the hemispheric exchange that occurred between North American and Cuban dancers at this time.

Fidel’s Speech to Intellectuals

Castro, Fidel. Palabras a los intelectuales. Havana, National Cultural Council, 1961. 30 Jun 1961.

I found out about this speech from the Suki John book, where she mentions the Cuban Revolution’s stance on artistic freedom. However, from the date of the transcription, I can tell that Fidel was compelled to make a statement about the relationship between the broader arts (theatre, writing, music, and dance) and the Revolution; there must have been a lot of tension at that meeting of the National Cultural Council.

Throughout Fidel’s LONG speech (I knew he was known for having long speeches, but what an interesting rhetorical style!), I learned that the artists and writers were worried about 1) supplies/printing, 2) artistic freedom without censorship, and 3) place/training locations. He (humbly) addresses and validates their concerns, but ultimately makes the argument that everything must be judged through the “crystal” of the Revolution. In other words, as long as one is trying to be a Revolutionary, or at least work within it, they will get their concerns met (no timeline, however).

In this way, Fidel is not drawing a line between art and the Revolution, but rather seeing them as one and the same. Why wouldn’t a good revolutionary support the aims of the Revolution (the people, and socioeconomic improvement) through his/her art? Of course, he recognizes that not everyone is a revolutionary, but he/she can be at least “honest” or at worst, a counterrevolutionary (and thus, bad). He also acknowledges that an artist can make any art on any topic, but that in order for it to be publicized or presented, it will be judged by the Revolutionary government.

All this relates to Guillermoprieto’s book Dancing with Cuba, and her conflict in seeing herself as a teacher of modern dance AND supporting her (presumed) Revolutionary students. Fidel is saying that the arts, which he assumes all have the same aim, can support the Revolution. Guillermoprieto is taking the lessons of modern dance (universality, the individual body, abstract idealism) and trying to fit them into this model. They do not work because of the emphasis on the individual, but moreover because of the focus on the body. The Revolutionary body is made to work for the good of all. It is only a material medium to help through manual labor or in creating beauty for the state, but not ugliness or abstract/questioning ideology.

Fidel assumes that cultural revolution ultimately wants to support a Cuban aesthetic as defined by the tropical landscape, the abandoned buildings of the wealthy bourgeois, but the body is not conceived of. The government realizes that in order to make a more nationalistic and Cuban identity, it must include Afro-Cuban roots, but Fidel seems unable to validate this outright. Instead, he focuses on the economic and material needs and assumes it will improve the cultural and artistic ones.

What is disjointed here is the assumptions behind the purpose of art or culture – not to mention dance specifically. Not all art is in the business of “the redemption of humanity.”  This concept itself is debatable – as what is the answer to uplift ALL people in society is unclear. Moreover, the gap between the human experience and the social experience can be large. What one person lives through in their life, the joy and pain of living and learning, can be powerful and irregardless of socioeconomic position (although influenced by this). A rich person can be abused. A poor person can have positive social positions in his/her community. So,  Fidel then doesn’t account for the individual experience of life even if his/her socioeconomic position is stable and full of opportunity. Dance, and perhaps modern dance, seeks to illuminate parts of the human experience that are not in the Revolution.

Does this mean that the Cuban Revolution did not attend to the human experience?

Perhaps. In some ways, it’s an argument of existence. Fidel believes if the Revolution exists (because of freedom) then it has the right to censor, sacrifice, and promote. But, existential arguments are a slippery slope, and illogical when they realize the inability to rely on freedom but also limitations. Dance exists, and has the right to be and evolve, but how can it when the Revolution has a duty to promote itself AND art/culture?

I’ll think on these ideas more. I hope to return to this document for the chapter, to reference the tension and assumptions that Fidel (and the government) was making about art at the start of the Revolution.