"From Dragonfly to Butterfly": Nation, Identity and Culture in Postrevolutionary Mexico (1920-1940) as Reflected in Nellie Campobello's Dance and Narrative
This dissertation explores the question of identity in dancer and writer
Nellie Campobello (1900-?) in post-revolutionary Mexico. I examine the evolution
of her dance, her narrative and her poetry in the light of important cultural and
political changes. Because a principal element in this discussion is the formation
of a strong national identity, I have decided to study its effects on both her dance
and her literary works. Part 1 considers the role of the Nation-State in articulating
the postwar-self together with the role of prominent intellectuals such as Jose
Vasconcelos; his impact upon a new cultural and Mexican aesthetic in which myth
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and symbols such as the National Stadium played a decisive role in imagining the
nation. Part 2 explores the dance in the context of the polemical and radical 30s
when Nellie Campobello emerged as a representative of the new aesthetics in
which the "masculine" as opposed to the "feminine" redefined the national
identity. The II stadium dance" and the 11 soldadera" were seen as best expressions
for revolution and socialism in the Cardenas era. The focus of part 3 is the cultural
and aesthetic shift from the radical and the "masculine" to the conciliatory and the
"feminine". With the help of influential fatherly figures such as Martin Luis
Guzman, a past member of the Ateneo de la Juventud, Nellie Campobello adapted
herself to his classical tradition. From this point on this study focuses on literary
texts to discuss her contributions to questions of identity. In part 4 I examine the
formation of identity in the context of the rebelious and iconoclastic thirties
reflected in Campobello's early poetry. I then study Cartucho and its rejections of
myth and its recuperation of the forgotten men and women of the Revolution.
Part 5 returns to the ambivalent relationship between Campobello and Guzman,
sponsor of Campobello's new image. Her strategic alliance with a prestigious
figure of "criollo" culture in the late thirties would help reshape the "coarse"
Cartucho into the "refined" and spiritual image of Las manos de mama.
Consequently, part 6 examines the effects and the consequences of her
metamorphosis from the rebelious and authentic to the ambivalent and more
"domestic" image of the feminine redefined by national myths
