Quebradita and Reggaeton: Mexican and Latinx Border Dances

Introduction to Quebradita dance and its evolution into mass culture

Read: Sydney Hutchinson “Breaking Borders/Quebrando fronteras: Dancing in the Borderscape” In Transnational Encounters: Music and Performance at the U.S.-Mexico Border.

View: Quebradita Mexican Dancers in Winnipeg 2017 (Links to an external site.)

Vocabulary: kinetopia, Proposition 187, Quebradita/Break Dancing, borderscape, Pasito Düranguense, rasquachismo, folk-popular-mass culture,
Victor and Gabby.

View: MasterCard Quebradita with Victor and Gabby (Links to an external site.)

Mexican and Latinx Border Dances of the U.S.-Mexico border include cumbia norteña, waila, Western or country swing, Nor-Tec and Quebradita. Quebradita was one of the most hated dances in the Americas mostly among adults. By 2007 in Winnipeg, Canada, Quebradita was performed in the Mexican pavilion in a festival called Folklorama. Some YouTube viewers commented that it was “100% Mexican,” while others claimed that Quebradita is, “NOT Traditional Mexican Folkloric Dance” Through time, Quebradita has become an accepted symbol of modern Mexico. Dancers dress in flamboyant western clothing, catchy music and acrobatic movements, the Quebradita inspired people to join dance clubs or attend events in their spare time. Quebradita combined dance styles such as, ballet folklórico, corriditas, norteña, cumbia, etc., but at the same time employed lo ranchero that references rodeo and charreada, and rasquachismo a border aesthetic that relies on bright and bold juxtapositions. Victor and Gaby are a dance duo from Mexico City and company leaders of Salsa con Clave, who performed their own dance blend of Salsa with Quebradita How do we discuss Quebradita which began and is still rooted to folk dance and culture but as it became popular and developed into an urban dance craze spilling over into mainstream popular culture. Has quebradita become mass culture, if so, provide evidence that commercialization has killed or transformed tradition. Pasito Düranguense emerged from the Quebradita craze in the early 2000s in Chicago shifting the notion of “border dance” far removed from the actual U.S. border. Using the same musical styles and dance as Quebradita, it added a more explicit discussion of immigration with Duranguense videos showing the U.S. landscape, unlike Quebradita that showed an imagened and fictive connection to Mexico.

View: Pasadito Düranguense (Links to an external site.)

Read: Ramon H. Rivera-Servera “Dancing Reggaetón with Cowboy Boots” In Transnational Encounters: Music and Performance At the U.S. Mexico Border.

Vocabulary: reggaeton, Atrevete, te, te (Calle 13), metrosexual hipness, Club Zarape, Club Karamba, cumbia, norteño, banda, Spanish pop on Vaquero, rock & roll, disco, punk, indie, electronica, dance rock, brit pop, salsa, merengue, rock and pop en español (global repertoires), Pan-Latinidad, chusma, fresitas, Maricopa Sheriff Joseph "Joe" Arpaio, Jan Brewer, AZ HB1020 and HB 2281

Rivera-Servera considers the positioning of class in relation to Latinidad and Mexicanidad within the Queer Latinx Nightclubs in Phoenix, Arizona.  He attempts to trace the more fluid aspects of a social geography that is intersectional in nature identifying local practices of inclusion and exclusion that govern belonging across local, national, and transnational scales. These are points where queer latinidad becomes articulately palpable as and in performance. How is class difference expressed through terms such as fresa, metrosexual, chusma, maricon, joto and puto and how are "mostly straight," bi-curious and men on the down low navigating the homosexual terrain and trans/gendered/sexual presence in society?  The “x” has emerged as an insistence on the here-ness of the diverse Latino population in the United States. However, scholars are raising questions over whether or not the x actually escapes gender binaries or is it more of a generational evolution in Latinidad? Is it, like Latin@, a passing trend? (see Milian 2013) or is it revealing reification of an identity and language that is always in flux and imprecise, and a move forward to sites that we ourselves create and narrate? Does it foster more inclusivity regarding LGTBQ rights such as marriage equality, transgender bathrooms, HIV/AIDS, violence towards same-sex attraction, homophobia, heterosexism and machismo?