ABSTRACT
Tino is a Cuban percussionist and dancer and an initiate of santería who was invited to teach art at the Arts School of Xalapa, the capital of Veracruz State, Mexico. In explaining his projects, he emphasizes his role as “cultural ambassador.” Javier is Mexican who is both an anthropologist and a percussionist and is among the precursors of the “Afro” cultural movement in Mexico. Cristóbaland the Méndez brothers are percussionists and self-taught dancers from the port of Veracruz. These figures are connected through membership in a transnational network of interpreter-promoters of the “Afro-Cuban” repertoire. This article presents an interconnected analysis of their itineraries that critically reappraises what it means to this network by raising such questions as: 1. Is there a “sense of transnationality” among artists? And 2. How does it then combine with local and national identity-based constructions? Because these itineraries reflect how these participants narrate them and the particular terms that they use, they provide insights about their conceptions of their artistic practices in relation to the others within a relational space that traverses - and yet does not efface - geographic borders and “imagined communities.”
