The book reveals how the Dance of the Old Men and Night of the Dead of Lake Pátzcuaro act as icons of Mexico and Mexicanness. Covering a ninety-year period from the postrevolutionary era of the 1920s to the present day, and incorporating multifarious contexts in Mexico, the USA, and Europe, this study proposes a theory of performism as a frame for interpreting the processes at play as local dance, music, ritual practices, and locations are deployed as national and global spectacles and attractions. Wholly embedded in political, ideological, economic, and aesthetic particularities, this study i ... More

The book reveals how the Dance of the Old Men and Night of the Dead of Lake Pátzcuaro act as icons of Mexico and Mexicanness. Covering a ninety-year period from the postrevolutionary era of the 1920s to the present day, and incorporating multifarious contexts in Mexico, the USA, and Europe, this study proposes a theory of performism as a frame for interpreting the processes at play as local dance, music, ritual practices, and locations are deployed as national and global spectacles and attractions. Wholly embedded in political, ideological, economic, and aesthetic particularities, this study is concerned with analyzing official constructions of indigenous/indigenousness and folklore/folklórico, focusing on the ideology of indigenismo and the P'urhépecha peoples. Central to the analyses are notions of shaping a collective gaze, authentication, embodiment, folkloricization, ideological refunctionalization, commodification, and commoditization. Key to understanding these cultural constructions are issues of centers and peripheries as this investigation moves between local lives and international politics. Drawing on extensive ethnographic, archival, and participatory experience this interdisciplinary study expands and enriches understanding of complex processes of creating national icons, cultural artifacts, tourist attractions, and representative dance repertoires, specifically engaged with the signifying power of the human body. The book shows how constructions of Mexicanness and Mexico are manifest in multiple theatricalized, musical, filmic, literary, and visual representations as found in an eclectic range of sources.