Dancing the New World: Aztecs, Spaniards, and the Choreography of Conquest by Paul A. Scolieri (review)

Scolieri has provided a brilliantly detailed analysis of historical dance practices in Mesoamerica during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. He uses archival documents to engage with narrating the conquest of the Americas through the unexpected lens of dance. Performance is considered in its broadest sense, as encompassing of festival performance, religious procession, dialogic performance, and hierarchical spectacle. The volume is carefully researched and utilizes interdisciplinary methodologies of text analysis, translation, and historical ethnography. Both the writing and the images focus on historical moments of conquest and colonization in New Spain. The book includes 42 maps and illustrations along with ten appendices comprised of archival text translations.

Scolieri begins by identifying a set of key sources that inform the inquiry; these include codices, journals, and travel writings. The introduction defines key terms and concepts; it also delineates paradigms for discourse about the “Aztec” empire, describes Moorish influences on Spanish performance, and distinguishes among dance descriptions in colonial writings by providing contexts for baile, danza, areíto, and mitote styles. The broad definitions lay the groundwork for Scolieri to discuss dance as a cultural encounter of divergent ideologies.

The first chapter focuses on the areíto, a Táıno term that describes sung dances or poem-songs. The author argues that “early chroniclers invented the term areíto to represent an evolving modern concept of performance as an embodied way of knowing and transmitting knowledge that is distinct from writing“ (p. 28). Study of this form legitimized dance as a way of investigating difference and justifying conquest. Chapter 2 builds on this premise by focusing on the writings of Friar Toribio de Benavente “Motolinía,” a Franciscan missionary who, with Friar Bernardino de Sahagún, documented Aztec dance and ceremonial practices in great detail. Motolinía hoped to bridge the old and new worlds through his descriptive analysis of dance, but instead reified a “linear narrative of Christian conquest” (p. 47). Thus, the first two chapters of Scolieri’s book document early writings about dance through the ideological lens of the Spanish religious chroniclers.

In Chapter 3, Scolieri discusses ceremonial dance and the meanings of sacrifice in Aztec public rituals. An insightful look at the Florentine Codex forms the backbone of this section. The author analyzes the political, social, and sacred meanings of the sacrificial rituals as he describes the choreographies that surround them. He begins by investigating how time and space are configured in the codex and then carefully explains how Aztec hierarchies and social orders are represented in the ceremonies. This contextual analysis is one of the great strengths of the book because of the way in which it integrates discussion across disciplinary boundaries.

Chapter 4 analyzes a broad range of images, reports, and histories that circumscribe the 1520 festival of Toxcatl that led to the overthrow of the Aztec empire. While many scholars have noted the devastating and enduring consequences of this event, Scolieri uniquely focuses on conflicting narratives and the role that dance played in the massacre. Of particular note is his reading of the visual engravings that accompany Bartolomé de Las Casas’s account of the conquest. The last chapter of the book chronicles the use of dance by the colonial authorities in the formation of New Spain. Conquest dances, moros y cristianos displays and entradas occupied a contested space in colonial society because they both Christianized indigenous populations and provided opportunities for the persistence of ancient idolatries.

The author concludes by identifying dance as a diplomatic weapon and a sacred practice that illuminates cultural encounters in the discovery and colonization of the Americas. His detailed analysis of moments of ideological disjuncture supports this argument. This is a comprehensive and impressive volume that utilizes meticulous archival research to demonstrate how performance analysis can contribute to historical methodologies.