ABSTRACT
Spanish for “little break,” quebradita is a Mexican/Mexican American social dance form that first emerged during the 1990s and continues to this day. Marked by the hybridization of US and Mexican aesthetics, the dance form has been built transnationally through time by brown, working-class participants in the US and Mexico. In doing so, dancers have created a transborder community used to activate their imaginations and inspire daring dance moves. This chapter analyzes quebradita’s signature dance technique, la quebrada, a movement between couples where the leading partner bends the following partner towards the floor, to consider how US quebradita dancers have used social dancing and creative ingenuity to catalyze new ways of being and belonging. As dancers learn to break with the verticality of partnering in Mexican social dancing, they develop an embodied prowess that teaches them to cope with volatile economies, immigration, assimilation, and xenophobia. Ultimately, I argue that la quebrada and its influence on the spectacular tricks quebradita has become known for is a site that dancers use to politicize dance, build community and identities of resistance, and reclaim the labor of their bodies as working-class peoples in the US.
