Browsing by Author "Ana, Ruxandra"
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Item Salsa and the (Eternal) City. Rethinking the pleasure periphery(Taylor & Francis Group, 2023-08-10) Ana, RuxandraThis article takes as a starting point one of the classic metaphors in tourism studies, the ‘pleasure periphery’, in order to examine how the embodied labour of subaltern bodies establishes a regime of recognition, visibility, and value. Situated at the intersections of transnational migration, social mobility, and bodily work, this analysis follows the professional and personal trajectories of Cuban dancers in Europe. I discuss the various forms of exclusion that emerge at the intersection of dance consumerism, assumptions about migrant belongings, and hierarchies of performance practices. The ‘pleasure periphery’ serves as a spatial and symbolic metaphor that gives insight into the pivotal role of Cuban dance and music for the transnational dance scene, while shedding light on how peripheralization is reshaped and reproduced in migratory contexts. The transnational contexts of dance labour bring into focus the tensions between its emancipatory potential for Cuban performers and the perpetuation of consumption patterns and business strategies that reify peripherality on various levels (spatial, symbolic, and affective). The article is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Havana, Cuba, and Rome, Italy among Cuban professional dancers and dance educators.Item ‘Watch and do what I do’: ethnographic fieldnotes from the online salsa class(Taylor & Francis, 2022-10-27) Ana, RuxandraRestrictions on movement and requirements for social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic have triggered an almost total shift to digital creation, teaching, and promotion in the field of dance. By employing an (auto)ethnographic lens, this article explores collective and individual embodied knowledge acquired through online dance classes, with a particular focus on Cuban social dance genres. Music and dance were core components of the Cuban tourism industry, an important pillar of the Cuban economy which was brought to a halt by the pandemic. Dancers’ participation in the global dance market through transition to online dancing was hindered by the struggles of everyday life in Cuba, yet their resilience and resourcefulness allowed them to transform their previous routines and pedagogies following the same mechanisms that lead to the emergence of a Cuban dance market in the first place. The article reflects upon the disruptions of old dynamics and emergence of new ones, by focusing on shifting methodologies of Cuban dance, strategies for monetizing creative labour, and the female dancing body as transformative space.