Dancing Spanishness: Antonia Mercé La Argentina in the Philippines
Idoia Murga-Castro, Instituto de Historia, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas
This paper analyzes colonial gestures in the 1929 tour of the Philippines of the Spanish dancer Antonia Mercé Luque (Buenos Aires, 1890 - Bayonne, 1936), aka La Argentina, within the incipient cultural policies of Hispanidad and the strategies of construction and legitimation of a dance of Spanish national identity. The talk explores her impact on Manilan society barely thirty years after Spain lost the colony to the hands of the United States, as well as the circumstances in which she studied and documented the Philippine dance cariñosa, which she then adapted and included in her repertoire on her return to Europe.
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