The Footsteps of Nieves Fresneda: Cuban Folkloric Dance and Cultural Policy, 1959–1979

Abstract

This article examines the history of Cuban folkloric dance by following the footsteps of star dancer Nieves Fresneda from 1959 to her retirement in 1979. Fresneda was a founding member of the Havana-based national folkloric dance company, Conjunto Folklórico Nacional (CFN). Studies have charted the early history of the CFN but tend to portray the company as a state-led enterprise that sprang fully formed from political leaders. By contrast, this study asserts that the company was imagined and created by folkloric performers and collaborators who fought for a genre, admittedly built on the fraught foundations of racial inequality and paternalistic reform. In recounting this history, I regularly return to Fresneda, grounding the essay in a specific body and life that had particular importance to the CFN. Fresneda and her colleagues were expert cultural producers, known as "informants," and provided the foundation and fount to folkloric performance. Although this has been mentioned in previous literature, I seek to underscore informants' centrality to politics and theory making through performance. Borrowing from José Esteban Muñoz (who himself borrowed from Antonio Gramsci), I argue that these individuals were "organic intellectuals," who celebrated Cuban blackness and promoted goals of racial justice through their folkloric arts.