ABSTRACT
Throughout the 19th century, descriptions of flamenco dance circulated outside of Spain via travel narratives written by French, British, and US-American elites. WOD’s composition seems to encourage flamenco artists to play to the mass appeal of cultural tropes and stereotypes, and the author ask what effects these widely distributed televised representations of flamenco have on US-American artists who seek to innovate, decolonize, and/or queer the field of flamenco performance. Lopez’s use of the phrase “regular choreography” as synonymous with movement of Western concert and commercial dance, reveals her positionality and implies that flamenco is outside of what she considers “regular.” Clearly, there are contradictory forces at play in the politics of WOD. The show’s commodification of dancing bodies and its reduction of cultural dance to a commercialized stereotype to be judged by American celebrities implies a “positional superiority”.
