ABSTRACT
Plantations are portrayed as happy sites of leisure, plantation owners as cultured and genteel, and histories of colonization and slavery are concealed. Women began the pageant in 1932 as the highlight of “Spring Pilgrimage,” a tourist attraction promoting Confederate heritage. As it reconfigures memory of the past, the pageant reflects ideals of the present, to imagine the future. The procession ritually weds ideal citizens: a military man and an aristocratic woman. Several other scenes similarly feature heterosexual couplings. Like America’s past, the pageant has often been rescripted and reimagined. The Confederate Pageant exemplifies how dance reflects political struggles. If dance creates possibilities for social change, it also may reiterate hierarchies or enforce inequities. As a case study, the Confederate Pageant illustrates how dance influences historical memory, and articulates cultural change, social tensions, and conflicting beliefs about the nation.
