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Embodied Knowledge as Revolutionary Dance: Representations of Cuban Modern Dance in Alma Guillermoprieto's Dancing with Cuba

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 August 2019

Rachel Oriol
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oriolra@miamioh.edu
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Abstract

This article examines Alma Guillermoprieto's use of embodied knowledge in her memoir Dancing with Cuba. Descriptions of embodiment reveal her struggle to reconcile the values of modern dance with Ernesto Guevara's symbolic New Man—the ideal revolutionary used to promote physical labor as the means to a socialist utopia. I argue that Guillermoprieto solves this crisis by turning toward language, in particular language that activates the kinesthetic imagination—an archive of embodied experiences dancers rely on to engage choreography. An emphasis on embodied knowledge in the memoir shows how crucial dancing bodies are to the literary archive of the Revolution.

Keywords

Cuban modern dance Cuban New Man embodied knowledge kinesthetic imagination memoir
Type
Articles
Information
Dance Research Journal , Volume 51 , Issue 2 , August 2019 , pp. 51 - 67
Copyright
Copyright © Dance Studies Association 2019 

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