Introduction

Abstract

The introduction explains the book’s focus on how concert dancers in ballet, modern dance, and folkloric dance from 1930 to 1990 built on precedents to create world-renowned dance after the 1959 Revolution. In contrast to narratives that attribute dance achievements to official cultural policies, dance makers had to contend with authoritarianism and fight to bring a cultural industry into being in collaboration with officials ranging from obliging to hostile to apathetic. In doing so, they obtained degrees of power. For instance, once on stage, dancers used ephemeral movements to convey a range of politics, including revolutionary militancy, as well as discontent with racial prejudice, traditional gender norms, and limited freedom of expression. Although dancers had the power to use public venues to convey politics, not all artists were treated equally. Juxtaposing different dance forms exposes privileges based on race and class as ballet, identified with whiteness and elite sensibilities, has enjoyed the most state support in Cuba. Ultimately, this study of concert dance history shows Cuban citizens literally and metaphorically dancing with the Revolution. This means they did not simply resist or comply with a monolithic state, but enacted complex manoeuvrers to push forward their professional agenda.