Jose Luis Reynoso is Assistant Professor of Critical Dance Studies at UC Riverside. He was the Andrew W. Mellon postdoctoral fellow in Dances Studies in/and the Humanities at Northwestern University (2012-2014) and completed a M.F.A. in dance (2006) and Ph.D. in culture and performance (2012) at UCLA. He also holds a M.A. degree in psychology from California State University Los Angeles (2003). Dr. Reynoso has published articles on political economy and artistic ideology in postmodern dance practices in the US and Europe, dance studies and dance practices in Mexico, and mestizo dance modernisms in Latin America.
"Reynoso offers a productive reformulation of danced Mestizaje as an anti-racist and inclusive instance of pluriversality that counters the racialized modernist pretense of universality, by centering Mexican contributions to the history of modern dance. This book is essential reading for scholars of performance and modern dance, but also of post-revolutionary Mexican visual culture at large. * Mary K. Coffey, Professor of Art History and Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies, Dartmouth College * In this compellingly written and deeply researched text, Jos´e Reynoso introduces the concept of embodied mestizo modernisms to theorize how national and international choreographers employed components of Indigenous, folkloric, ballet, and modern dance to both embrace and contest racial formations at key points in Mexican revolutionary and post-revolutionary history. A major intervention within dance and Latin American studies, it will shape future thinking around the relationship between modernist dance practices, the transnational circulation of artists, and race. * Victoria Fortuna, Associate Professor, Dance Department, Reed College * Deeply researched and theoretically astute, Dancing Mestizo Modernisms makes a profound contribution to contemporary dance studies, fulfilling the imperative to create a global dance history that decolonizes the curriculum. * Susan Manning, Bergen Evans Professor in the Humanities, Northwestern University * In this meticulously researched book, Dr. Reynoso analyzes dance not only as an art form, but also as a way of circulating ideologies that have taken part in the construction of racial and social notion of what ""Mexico"" is. The author traces how as a specific cultural field dance participated in political, social, and bodily dynamics from the country's postcolonial formation in the 1820s until mid-twentieth century. The book's theoretical approach makes an important contribution to the formulation of dance as an object of study while expanding our knowledge regarding art, cultural practices, and the construction of Mexico (and Latin American countries) as a nation. * Margarita Tortajada, National Center for Research, Documentation and Information Cenidi Danza ""Jos´e Lim´on"" *"