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Mambo and the Maya

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 July 2014

Anita Gonzalez
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Extract

This essay is a descriptive analysis of a 2000 encounter with Mayan “mambo” dancing in a mountain community, an encounter that challenges assumptions about prevalent notions of exoticism, identity, and cultural authenticity. Traveling in Guatemala with a group of international scholars, I witnessed a public performance of the transnational mambo by costumed Guatemalans that was not mambo, not Mayan, and not social. Male performers, in celebration of Corpus Christi, dressed as Disney-style costume characters and executed routines to merengue music while nondancing participants watched the spectacle. This contradictory display of dancing encouraged me to reflect on the impact of popular social dance and to examine the complicated meanings communicated by performers who incorporate body-based art into indigenous social and economic paradigms. The performers' unique interpretation of mambo dance within the context of a public Corpus Christi festival underscored discrepancies between institutional perceptions of the mambo and the popular reuse of dance motifs. At the same time, the performance, which used clowning as a mechanism to engage the audience, inverted the solemnity of the religious feast day.

Type
Articles
Information
Dance Research Journal , Volume 36 , Issue 1: 35/2 Winter 2003 & 36/1 Summer 2004 , Summer 2004 , pp. 131 - 145
Copyright
Copyright © Congress on Research in Dance 2004

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