Theatre & Dance ETDs
Publication Date
Spring 4-8-2019
Abstract
The Modern Synthesis of Josephine Baker and Carmen Amaya explores how flamenco dancer Carmen Amaya and African American performer Josephine Baker utilized modern synthesis in their careers. I define modern synthesis as a synthesis of various ideas and identities that supports a modern fluid identity that points to the idea of an alternative space that is beyond definition and human categorization. Expanding upon the ideas of Brenda Dixon Gottschild and William Washabaugh, I propose that there exists a thread of a tragic/comic dichotomy in African American performance and simultaneous opposition in flamenco and that Baker and Amaya came out of these traditions and used modern synthesis to formulate new modern hybrid identities. Coming out of a tradition of a tragic/comic context for African American performers, I argue that Baker synthesized savagery/royalty and demonstrated hybrid-gendered embodiment with her phallic banana skirt performance. In contrast, Carmen Amaya came out of a tradition of simultaneous opposition in flamenco and used modern synthesis by complicating four binaries of regional Andalusian/non-Andalusian, Hyper-gitana/hyper-American performance, the perception of gitana/classical elements in the U.S. and male/female aesthetics. Furthermore, the work finds that African American performance and flamenco were launched into modernity through artists such as Amaya and Baker, even though African Americans and the Spanish struggled with being viewed as modern historically (Woods 2012:108). The last section of the work examines my MFA choreographic work Ink on Cotton and how it continues a legacy of modern synthesis through complicating identity categories in the present day.
Degree Name
Dance
Level of Degree
Doctoral
Department Name
Theatre & Dance
First Committee Member (Chair)
Donna Jewell
Second Committee Member
Dominika Laster
Third Committee Member
Kirsten Buick
Fourth Committee Member
Marisol Encinias
Fifth Committee Member
Eva Encinias
Sixth Committee Member
Amanda Hamp
Language
English
Keywords
Dance, Carmen Amaya, Josephine Baker, Modern Synthesis, Flamenco, African American History
Document Type
Dissertation
Recommended Citation
Miles, Justice Moriah. "The Modern Synthesis of Josephine Baker and Carmen Amaya." (2019). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/thea_etds/48
