Carrying the Word: The Concheros Dance in Mexico City

6: Clothing Matters

103 So far I have been concerned with the dancers as subjects who by their “mode of presence and engagement in the world” actively embody the dance through time and re-present it. This chapter moves from an analysis of the dancers’ experience of what is happening to and within the body, over which the dancers have only a certain amount of conscious control, to look at what is displayed on the body, at how dancers dress themselves. As Csordas has recently argued, the body is best understood as a subject that is “necessary to be” rather than an object that is “good to think,” but when it comes to sartorial preferences, the latter is more clearly the case.1 The verbal expressions used during a dance follow a restricted code (as indicated in Chapter 5), but the clothing worn is much less constrained and is an aspect over which the dancers have much more individual say in the signifying process. A dancer’s clothing is usually a combination of both the conventional and the individualistic: on the one hand, it speaks to the general sartorial views of that dancer’s mesa, but it can also express a dancer’s ontological sense of self and say something about what the dancer considers the dance to mean. It is indicative of the self the dancer professes and has invested in and this self can be re-presented to those she dances with as well as act as a self-reflecting mirror. In what they wear, the dancers have more freedom to improvise, to follow inspiration, or to act as bricoleurs; their clothing giving them an opportunity to be creative within the broad rules laid down by their jefe. s i x Clothing Matters C l o t h i n g M a t t e r s 104 6.1. A woman dancer at Tlatelolco. The importance of dress to the dance is that it is eye-catching and can act as a strong signifier. Overall, it is festive, exuberant, and often ostentatious; much is highly decorated, brilliantly and diversely colored, as well as lustrous or glittering , with a great variety of textures and finishes. Even if the observer’s eye is not captivated by the dance itself, the costumes worn usually excite comment and speculation. Because they can be seen as texts to be read and interpreted, it is also an aspect of the dance that takes up a lot of time and attention. Clothing matters. Clothing in general has received much more anthropological consideration recently.2 Everyday clothing can make statements about social and cultural values . Tarlo indicates how in India, a person’s ethnicity and social status (or caste) can be assessed from what he or she wears. It is one of the first things that can be read about other people, often before we have even spoken to them. What they wear addresses us and demands our attention.3 In many cultures, however, people often wear special apparel for particular occasions, such as for a ritual or ceremony. This tends to be a marked form to C l o t h i n g M a t t e r s 105 which more care and attention is usually given: a bride wears an elaborate dress for her wedding just as a Conchero dresses in special clothing for the dance. It is a form of active rather than passive dressing.4 In other situations, in Latin America, for example, indigenous men in particular are increasingly adopting standard Western clothing when they want to pass as mestizos for work purposes.5 Within such communities, dress can be used to signal certain political affiliations; to dress in indigenous clothing (or traje) can bring political and/or economic benefits when dignitaries visit a community. For dealing with tourists too, a conscious decision can be taken to dress up in the very clothing that has in the past tended to perpetuate the group’s marginalization.6 In such communities, this is a clear example of the growth of a self-consciousness about what is worn. But is this switching clothes to other clothing or to a costume? Indigenous men who have worn trousers for years may feel that when they don their traditional traje for a particular reason, they are now dressing up, putting on a costume. In societies where individuals tend to have a variety of clothes...