General reference works that incorporate extensive coverage of the dance and music of Latin America include Selma Jeanne Cohen (ed.), International Encyclopedia of Dance, 6 vol. (1998); Bruno Nettl et al. (eds.), The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, vol. 2, South America, Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean (1998); and Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (eds.), The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed., 29 vol. (2001), all of which are also available in online editions for a fee. Scholarship on Latin American dance topics appears in such publications as the Dance Research Journal (semiannual); Ethno-musicology (3/yr.); Black Music Research Journal (semiannual); and Revista/Review interamericana (quarterly).
The Spanish heritage relevant to the study of Latin American dance is treated in Lucile Armstrong, Dances of Spain, 2 vol. (1951); and Matteo (Matteo Marcellus Vittucci) and Carola Goya, The Language of Spanish Dance, 2nd ed. (2003).
The Afro-Latino influences in both social and religious dances are substantiated in Robert Farris Thompson, Flash of the Spirit: African and Afro-American Art and Philosophy (1983); Joseph M. Murphy, Working the Spirit: Ceremonies of the African Diaspora (1994); John Charles Chasteen, National Rhythms, African Roots: The Deep History of Latin American Popular Dance (2004); and Yvonne Daniel, Dancing Wisdom: Embodied Knowledge in Haitian Vodou, Cuban Yoruba, and Bahian Candomblé (2005).
Other useful general treatments include Celeste Fraser Delgado and José Esteban Muñoz (eds.), Everynight Life: Culture and Dance in Latin/o America (1997); and Anthony Shay, Choreographic Politics: State Folk Dance Companies, Representation, and Power (2002).
Mexico and Central America
Mexico and Central America are discussed in the general works cited above, and they are the particular focus of Anita González, Jarocho’s Soul: Cultural Identity and Afro-Mexican Dance (2004); Daniel Sheehy, Mariachi Music in America: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture (2006); and Helena Simonett, Banda: Mexican Musical Life Across Borders (2001). More-specialized works include Max Harris, Aztecs, Moors, and Christians: Festivals of Reconquest in Mexico and Spain (2000); Samuel Martí and Gertrude Prokosch Kurath, Dances of Anáhuac (1964); Martha Stone, At the Sign of Midnight: The Concheros Dance Cult of Mexico (1975); Olga Nájera-Ramírez, La fiesta de los tastoanes: Critical Encounters in Mexican Festival Performance (1997); and Mark Pedelty, Musical Ritual in Mexico City: From the Aztec to NAFTA (2004).
Useful for a general introduction to the region are two collections of essays: Patrick Taylor (ed.), Nation Dance: Religion, Identity, and Cultural Differences in the Caribbean (2001); and Susanna Sloat (ed.), Caribbean Dance from Abakuá to Zouk: How Movement Shapes Identity (2002).
Cuba has a rich tradition of its own. The perspective of the dancer is represented by Susan Cashion, “Educating the Dancer in Cuba,” in Lynette Y. Overby and James H. Humphrey (eds.), Dance: Current Selected Research, vol. 1 (1989), pp. 165–185; and Alma Guillermoprieto, Dancing with Cuba: A Memoir of the Revolution, trans. by Esther Allen (2004). Historical context is provided by Yvonne Daniel, Rumba: Dance and Social Change in Contemporary Cuba (1995); Robin Moore, Nationalizing Blackness: Afrocubanismo and Artistic Revolution in Havana, 1920–1940 (1997); Louis A. Pérez, Jr., On Becoming Cuban: Identity, Nationality, and Culture (1999, reissued 2008); and Ned Sublette, Cuba and Its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo (2004).
The dance traditions of the Dominican Republic and Haiti have often been studied. Representative works about the Dominican Republic include Deborah Pacini Hernandez, Bachata: A Social History of a Dominican Popular Music (1995); Paul Austerlitz, Merengue: Dominican Music and Dominican Identity (1997); and Julia A. Sellers, Merengue and Dominican Identity: Music as National Unifier (2004). Haiti’s dances are discussed in Maya Deren, Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti (1953, reprinted 1983; also published as Divine Horsemen: The Voodoo Gods of Haiti, 1970); Katherine Dunham, Dances of Haiti (1983); and Gerdès Fleurant, Dancing Spirits: Rhythms and Rituals of Haitian Vodun, the Rada Rite (1996).
The tango, which is associated with Argentina and Uruguay, is considered in Donna J. Guy, Sex and Danger in Buenos Aires (1991); Simon Collier et al., Tango!: The Dance, the Song, the Story (1995); Marta E. Savigliano, Tango and the Political Economy of Passion (1995); Julie Taylor, Paper Tangos (1998); and Robert Farris Thompson, Tango: The Art History of Love (2005).
Brazil’s national dance, the samba, has been frequently studied. The literature includes Alma Guillermoprieto, Samba (1990); Barbara Browning, Samba: Resistance in Motion (1995); and Hermano Vianna, The Mystery of Samba: Popular Music & National Identity in Brazil, trans. by John Charles Chasteen (1999). The African influences on Brazilian dance are examined in Daniel J. Crowley, African Myth and Black Reality in Bahian Carnaval (1984); and Peter Fryer, Rhythms of Resistance: African Musical Heritage in Brazil (2000).
Peru’s varied dance traditions are analyzed in Elisabeth den Otter, Music and Dance of Indians and Mestizos in an Andean Valley of Peru (1985); Zoila S. Mendoza, Shaping Society Through Dance: Mestizo Ritual Performance in the Peruvian Andes (2000); and Heidi Carolyn Feldman, Black Rhythms of Peru: Reviving African Musical Heritage in the Black Pacific (2006).