Dancing across Borders: Danzas y Bailes Mexicanos focuses specifically on Mexican dance practices on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. The essays explore various types of Mexican popular and traditional dances and address questions of authenticity, aesthetics, identity, interpretation, and research methodologies in dance performance. Contributors include not only noted scholars from a variety of disciplines but also several dance practitioners who reflect on their engagement with dance and reveal subtexts of dance culture. Capturing dance as a living expression, the volume's ethnographic approach highlights the importance of the cultural and social contexts in which dances are practiced.

Contributors are Norma E. Cantú, Susan Cashion, María Teresa Ceseña, Xóchitl C. Chávez, Adriana Cruz-Manjarrez, Renée de la Torre Castellanos, Peter J. García, Rudy F. García, Chris Goertzen, Martha González, Elisa Diana Huerta, Sydney Hutchinson, Marie "Keta" Miranda, Olga Nájera-Ramírez, Shakina Nayfack, Russell Rodríguez, Brenda M. Romero, Nancy Lee Chalfa Ruyter, José Sánchez Jiménez, and Alberto Zárate Rosales.

Olga Nájera-Ramírez is a professor of anthropology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Norma E. Cantú is a professor of English at the University of Texas, San Antonio. Brenda M. Romero is an associate professor of ethnomusicology at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Acknowledgments   xi
Introduction   xiii
Olga Najera-Ramirez, Norma E. Cantu, and Brenda M. Romero

Part I: Contested Identities
1. Embodied Recuperations: Performance, Indigeneity, and Danza Azteca   3   Elisa Diana Huerta
2. The Zapopan Dancers: Reinventing an Indigenous Line of Descent   19   Renee de la Torre Castellanos
3. La Feria de Enero: Rethinking Gender in a Ritual Festival   48   Xochitl C. Chavez
4. Dancing to "Whittier Boulevard": Choreographing Social Identity   66   Marie "Keta" Miranda
5. Creating Agency and Identity in Danza Azteca   80   Maria Teresa Cesena

Part II: Dimensions of Space and Place
6. The Semiotics of Land and Place: Matachines Dancing in Laredo, Texas   97   Norma E. Cantu
7. Dancing to the Heights: Performing Zapotec Identity, Aesthetics, and Religiosity   116   Adriana Cruz-Manjarrez
8. Traditional Dances of the Sierra Norte of Puebla: Identity and Gender Relations   138   Alberto Zarate Rosales
9. Por Que Estas Aqui?: Dancing through History, Identity, and the Politics of Place in Butoh Ritual Mexicano   148   Shakina Nayfack
10. El Baile de los Elotes:   The Corn Dance   165   Jose Sanchez Jimenez

Part III: Trajectories of Tradition
11. The Matachines Danza as Intercultural Discourse   185   Brenda M. Romero
12. The Ballet Folklorico de Mexico and the Construction of the Mexican Nation through Dance   206   Sydney Hutchinson
13. Dancing Culture: A Personal Perspective on Folklorico   226   Rudy F. Garcia
14. The Mexican Danzon: Restrained Sensuality   237   Susan Cashion
15. Gender as a Theme in the Modern Dance Choreography of Barro Rojo   256   Nancy Lee Chalfa Ruyter

Part IV: Politics of Traditional and Innovation
16. Staging Authenticty: Theorizing the Development of Mexican Folklorico Dance   277   Olga Najera-Ramirez
17. Dance, Politics, and Cultural Tourism in Oaxaca's Guelgauetza   293   Chris Goerizen
18. Bailando para San Lorenzo: Nuevo Mexicano Popular Traditional Musics, Ritual Contexts, and Dancing during Bernalillo Fiesta Time   318   Peter J. Garcia
19. Folklorico in the United States: Cultural Preservation and Disillusion   335   Russell Rodriguez
20. Zapateado Afro-Chicana Fandango Style: Self-Reflective Moments in Zapateado   359   Martha Gonzalez
Epilogue   379
Selected Bibliography on Folk, Ritual, and Social Dance in Greater Mexico   383
Works Cited   403
Contributors   431
Index   437