Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Pilipino Cultural Nights at American campuses have been a rite of passage for youth culture and a source of local community pride since the 1980s. Through performances—and parodies of them—these celebrations of national identity through music, dance, and theatrical narratives reemphasize what it means to be Filipino American. In The Day the Dancers Stayed, scholar and performer Theodore Gonzalves uses interviews and participant observer techniques to consider the relationship between the invention of performance repertoire and the development of diasporic identification.
Gonzalves traces a genealogy of performance repertoire from the 1930s to the present. Culture nights serve several functions: as exercises in nostalgia, celebrations of rigid community entertainment, and occasionally forums for political intervention. Taking up more recent parodies of Pilipino Cultural Nights, Gonzalves discusses how the rebellious spirit that enlivened the original seditious performances has been stifled.
About the Author
Theodore S. Gonzalves is Associate Professor of American Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Introduction
1. The Art of the State: Inventing Philippine Folkloric Forms (Manila, 1934)
2. “Take It from the People”: Dancing Diplomats and Cultural Authenticity (Brussels, 1958)
3. Dancing into Oblivion: The Pilipino Cultural Night (Los Angeles, 1983)
4. Repetitive Motion: The Mechanics of Reverse Exile (San Francisco, 1993)
5. Making a Mockery of Everything We Hold True and Dear: Exploring Parody with Tongue in a Mood’s PCN Salute (San Francisco, 1997)
Conclusion
Epilogue: Memoria
Notes
Bibliography
Index