Awards

• Commended for de La Torre Bueno Prize 2013
• Commended for Sally Banes Publication Prize, American Society for Theatre Research 2014 (United States)
• Winner of de la Torre Bueno (R) Special Citation, Society of Dance History Scholars 2013 (United States)
• Winner of Oscar G. Brockett Book Prize in Dance Research 2014 (United States)

Overview

Winner, Oscar G. Brockett Book Prize in Dance Research, 2014 Honorable Mention, Sally Banes Publication Prize, American Society for Theatre Research, 2014 de la Torre Bueno (R) Special Citation, Society of Dance History Scholars, 2013 From Christopher Columbus to ""first anthropologist"" Friar Bernardino de Sahagun, fifteenth- and sixteenth-century explorers, conquistadors, clerics, scientists, and travelers wrote about the ""Indian"" dances they encountered throughout the New World. This was especially true of Spanish missionaries who intensively studied and documented native dances in an attempt to identify and eradicate the ""idolatrous"" behaviors of the Aztec, the largest indigenous empire in Mesoamerica at the time of its European discovery. Dancing the New World traces the transformation of the Aztec empire into a Spanish colony through written and visual representations of dance in colonial discourse-the vast constellation of chronicles, histories, letters, and travel books by Europeans in and about the New World. Scolieri analyzes how the chroniclers used the Indian dancing body to represent their own experiences of wonder and terror in the New World, as well as to justify, lament, and/or deny their role in its political, spiritual, and physical conquest. He also reveals that Spaniards and Aztecs shared an understanding that dance played an important role in the formation, maintenance, and representation of imperial power, and describes how Spaniards compelled Indians to perform dances that dramatized their own conquest, thereby transforming them into colonial subjects. Scolieri's pathfinding analysis of the vast colonial ""dance archive"" conclusively demonstrates that dance played a crucial role in one of the defining moments in modern history-the European colonization of the Americas.

Full Product Details

9780292744929

Table of Contents

Reviews

In this beautifully presented, thoroughly researched book, dance scholar Paul Scolieri builds a persuasive case for the significance of dance in the first encounters between Europeans and those they ultimately conquered, the Indians of the new World. Although the scope of the investigation s narrow, the author brings a variety of perspectives to bear on chronicles, journals and images form the 16th century... With glossy plats color plates, well-reproduced black-and-white images, and ten appendixes of translated source material, the book provides a great example of in-depth research using primary sources. - CHOICE

"""In this beautifully presented, thoroughly researched book, dance scholar Paul Scolieri builds a persuasive case for the significance of dance in the first encounters between Europeans and those they ultimately conquered, the Indians of the new World. Although the scope of the investigation s narrow, the author brings a variety of perspectives to bear on chronicles, journals and images form the 16th century... With glossy plats color plates, well-reproduced black-and-white images, and ten appendixes of translated source material, the book provides a great example of in-depth research using primary sources."" - CHOICE"

Author Information

PAUL A. SCOLIERI is Assistant Professor of Dance at Barnard College, Columbia University.

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