La escuela cubana: Dance education and performance in revolutionary Cuba

One of the first cultural projects of the Cuban Revolution was the national dance performance and education program. The program\u27s success, as well as the “Cuban School” of ballet, received international recognition. This dissertation tells the history of its growth during the 1960s and 1970s. Starting with the foundation of Ballet Nacional in the first year of the Revolution, the dance program eventually included professional companies modern dance and folklore companies, national schools, cultural houses and amateur competitions. The history these developments offers insight into the cultural politics during the early years of the Cuban Revolutionary government. The study uses a range of sources, including political documents, speeches, oral history, the Cuban press, and dance pamphlets, to reveal that Cuba\u27s dance program and its performances resulted from the combined efforts of the government, artists and intellectuals. Many of their ideas were inspired by the work of Fernando Ortiz and his concept of transculturation. Their efforts were part of a greater effort to define what it meant to be a Cuban Revolutionary. A study of dance demonstrates that the evolving concept became tied to Cuban socialism only during the period of economic and political change of the early 1970s. With the shift came a renewed commitment to amateur arts and to the recovery of a diverse set of Cuban traditions. A history of both dance performance and education presents the evolving definition of Cubanness as tied to specific performances of gender, race and sexuality. It also explains the central role of prima ballerina Alicia Alonso in those performances. Alicia became the example of the Cuban New Man, the quintessential Revolutionary Cuban