Performing Afro-Cuba
Performing Afro-Cuba

Author: Kristina Wirtz

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2014-06-05

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13: 022611919X

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Visitors to Cuba will notice that Afro-Cuban figures and references are everywhere: in popular music and folklore shows, paintings and dolls of Santería saints in airport shops, and even restaurants with plantation themes. In Performing Afro-Cuba, Kristina Wirtz examines how the animation of Cuba’s colonial past and African heritage through such figures and performances not only reflects but also shapes the Cuban experience of Blackness. She also investigates how this process operates at different spatial and temporal scales—from the immediate present to the imagined past, from the barrio to the socialist state. Wirtz analyzes a variety of performances and the ways they construct Cuban racial and historical imaginations. She offers a sophisticated view of performance as enacting diverse revolutionary ideals, religious notions, and racial identity politics, and she outlines how these concepts play out in the ongoing institutionalization of folklore as an official, even state-sponsored, category. Employing Bakhtin’s concept of “chronotopes”—the semiotic construction of space-time—she examines the roles of voice, temporality, embodiment, imagery, and memory in the racializing process. The result is a deftly balanced study that marries racial studies, performance studies, anthropology, and semiotics to explore the nature of race as a cultural sign, one that is always in process, always shifting.

Afro-Cuban Diasporas in the Atlantic World
Afro-Cuban Diasporas in the Atlantic World

Author: Solimar Otero

Publisher: University Rochester Press

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 1580463266

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Afro-Cuban Diasporas in the Atlantic World explores how Yoruba and Afro-Cuban communities moved across the Atlantic between the Americas and Africa in successive waves in the nineteenth century. In Havana, Yoruba slaves from Lagos banded together to buy their freedom and sail home to Nigeria. Once in Lagos, this Cuban repatriate community became known as the Aguda. This community built their own neighborhood that celebrated their Afrolatino heritage. For these Yoruba and Afro-Cuban diasporic populations, nostalgic constructions of family and community play the role of narrating and locating a longed-for home. By providing a link between the workings of nostalgia and the construction of home, this volume re-theorizes cultural imaginaries as a source for diasporic community reinvention. Through ethnographic fieldwork and research in folkloristics, Otero reveals that the Aguda identify strongly with their Afro-Cuban roots in contemporary times. Their fluid identity moves from Yoruba to Cuban, and back again, in a manner that illustrates the truly cyclical nature of transnational Atlantic community affiliation. Solimar Otero is Associate Professor of English and a folklorist at Louisiana State University. Her research centers on gender, sexuality, Afro-Caribbean spirituality, and Yoruba traditional religion in folklore, literature and ethnography. Dr. Otero is the recipient of a Ruth Landes Memorial Research Fund grant (2013), a fellowship at the Harvard Divinity School's Women's Studies in Religion Program (2009 to 2010), and a Fulbright award (2001).

Afro-Cuban Religious Arts
Afro-Cuban Religious Arts

Author: Kristine Juncker

Publisher:

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780813049700

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Part of the Latin American and Caribbean Arts and Culture Publication Initiative.

Cuban Literature in the Age of Black Insurrection
Cuban Literature in the Age of Black Insurrection

Author: Matthew Pettway

Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi

Published: 2019-12-30

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13: 1496825004

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Juan Francisco Manzano and Gabriel de la Concepción Valdés (Plácido) were perhaps the most important and innovative Cuban writers of African descent during the Spanish colonial era. Both nineteenth-century authors used Catholicism as a symbolic language for African-inspired spirituality. Likewise, Plácido and Manzano subverted the popular imagery of neoclassicism and Romanticism in order to envision black freedom in the tradition of the Haitian Revolution. Plácido and Manzano envisioned emancipation through the lens of African spirituality, a transformative moment in the history of Cuban letters. Matthew Pettway examines how the portrayal of African ideas of spirit and cosmos in otherwise conventional texts recur throughout early Cuban literature and became the basis for Manzano and Plácido’s antislavery philosophy. The portrayal of African-Atlantic religious ideas spurned the elite rationale that literature ought to be a barometer of highbrow cultural progress. Cuban debates about freedom and selfhood were never the exclusive domain of the white Creole elite. Pettway’s emphasis on African-inspired spirituality as a source of knowledge and a means to sacred authority for black Cuban writers deepens our understanding of Manzano and Plácido not as mere imitators but as aesthetic and political pioneers. As Pettway suggests, black Latin American authors did not abandon their African religious heritage to assimilate wholesale to the Catholic Church. By recognizing the wisdom of African ancestors, they procured power in the struggle for black liberation.

Celia Cruz
Celia Cruz

Author: Roberto Miguel Rodriguez

Publisher:

Published: 2023-09-20

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13:

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"Celia Cruz - The Defiant Voice of Afro-Cuban Music" is a riveting tribute to the life, legacy, and indomitable spirit of one of Latin music's most celebrated icons. This biography captures the essence of Celia Cruz's journey -- from her humble beginnings in Havana's vibrant neighborhoods to her ascent as the undisputed "Queen of Salsa." Using a rich tapestry of different sources, the author paints a vivid portrait of Cruz as not just a musical sensation but also a symbol of resilience and defiance against the socio-political challenges of her era. The book delves into Cruz's early exposure to Santería chants, rumba rhythms, and the burgeoning sounds of mambo, highlighting the Afro-Cuban roots that deeply influenced her musical style. While celebrating her chart-topping hits and collaborations with legendary artists, this biography also sheds light on Cruz's profound struggles. From facing racism due to her African heritage to her painful decision to leave Cuba post the Castro revolution, Cruz's life was marked by battles that went beyond the stage. Her voice, both in song and in life, became a beacon for countless immigrants and Afro-Latinos, echoing themes of hope, identity, and freedom. The author also emphasizes Cruz's role in challenging the gender norms of Latin music. In a male-dominated industry, Cruz carved out a space for herself, breaking barriers and setting the stage for future female artists. Through her distinctive style, characterized by vibrant costumes and her electrifying stage presence, the singer asserted her identity and influenced fashion and pop culture. "Celia Cruz - The Defiant Voice of Afro-Cuban Music" is not merely a chronicle of Cruz's life. It's a celebration of Afro-Cuban heritage, a testament to the power of perseverance, and an intimate look at the woman whose voice continues to inspire and resonate with generations across the globe. Whether you're a seasoned salsa aficionado or a newcomer to Cruz's captivating melodies, this book is an essential read, promising to immerse you in the rhythms and passions of a remarkable life.

Situated Narratives and Sacred Dance
Situated Narratives and Sacred Dance

Author: Jill Flanders Crosby

Publisher: University Press of Florida

Published: 2023-02-14

Total Pages: 274

ISBN-13: 1683403797

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Using storytelling and performance to explore shared religious expression across continents Through a revolutionary ethnographic approach that foregrounds storytelling and performance as alternative means of knowledge, Situated Narratives and Sacred Dance explores shared ritual traditions between the Anlo-Ewe people of West Africa and their descendants, the Arará of Cuba, who were brought to the island in the transatlantic slave trade. The volume draws on two decades of research in four communities: Dzodze, Ghana; Adjodogou, Togo; and Perico and Agramonte, Cuba. In the ceremonies, oral narratives, and daily lives of individuals at each fieldsite, the authors not only identify shared attributes in religious expression across continents, but also reveal lasting emotional, spiritual, and personal impacts in the communities whose ancestors were ripped from their homeland and enslaved. The authors layer historiographic data, interviews, and fieldnotes with artistic modes such as true fiction, memoir, and choreographed narrative, challenging the conventional nature of scholarship with insights gained from sensorial experience. Including reflections on the making of an art installation based on this research project, the volume challenges readers to imagine the potential of approaching fieldwork as artists. The authors argue that creative methods can convey truths deeper than facts, pointing to new possibilities for collaboration between scientists and artists with relevance to any discipline. Publication of the paperback edition made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Rebel Dance, Renegade Stance
Rebel Dance, Renegade Stance

Author: Umi Vaughan

Publisher: University of Michigan Press

Published: 2012-10-17

Total Pages: 341

ISBN-13: 0472028693

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Rebel Dance, Renegade Stanceshows how community music-makers and dancers take in all that is around them socially and globally, and publicly and bodily unfold their memories, sentiments, and raw responses within open spaces designated or commandeered for local popular dance. Umi Vaughan, an African American anthropologist, musician, dancer, and photographer "plantao" in Cuba—planted, living like a Cuban—reveals a rarely discussed perspective on contemporary Cuban society during the 1990s, the peak decade of timba, and beyond, as the Cuban leadership transferred from Fidel Castro to his brother. Simultaneously, the book reveals popular dance music in the context of a young and astutely educated Cuban generation of fierce and creative performers. By looking at the experiences of black Cubans and exploring the notion of "Afro Cuba," Rebel Dance, Renegade Stanceexplains timba's evolution and achieved significance in the larger context of Cuban culture. Vaughan discusses a maroon aesthetic extended beyond the colonial era to the context of contemporary society; describes the dance spaces of Cuba; and examines the performance of identity and desire through the character of the "especulador." This book will find an audience with musicians, anthropologists, ethnomusicologists, interdisciplinary specialists in performance studies, cultural studies, and Latin American and Caribbean studies, as well as laypeople who are interested in Atlantic/African and African American/Africana studies and/or Cuban culture.