This article examines how and why Cuban modern dancers and their scholars cite several white US dancers as forebearers in their nationalistic, anti-imperialistic, and anti-racist dance tradition. I use “contamination” to analyze this complicated topic, which threatens to unfairly center US dancers at Cubans’ expense or to romantically caricature Cubans defying US imperialism with a nationalist hybrid. Multidirectional, indeterminate contamination moves us away from narratives about US culture as a homogenizing force or a vanquished one. Contamination also importantly connotes stink, given that it is a product of imperialism and capitalism bringing far-flung people into close encounters. US contamination in Cuban modern dance histories, then, pushes attention to the shadowy reaches of the unseemly and incongruous—stylistic impurity, structural racism, historiographic neglect, revolutionary disaffection, and failure. Seeing the regrettable provides a fuller picture of the past, including the often-overlooked reality of shared damage and destructibility.

中文翻译：

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古巴现代舞史上的污染

本文探讨了古巴现代舞者及其学者如何以及为何将几位美国白人舞者作为其民族主义、反帝国主义和反种族主义舞蹈传统的先驱。我用“污染”来分析这个复杂的话题，它有可能不公平地将美国舞者置于古巴人的中心，或者浪漫地讽刺古巴人以民族主义混合体反抗美帝国主义。多向、不确定的污染使我们远离关于美国文化是一种同质化力量或被征服的力量的叙述。污染也很重要地意味着发臭，因为它是帝国主义和资本主义让相距遥远的人们近距离接触的产物。美国对古巴现代舞历史的污染，然后，将注意力转移到不体面和不协调的风格杂质的阴影范围，结构性种族主义、史学忽视、革命不满和失败。看到令人遗憾的事情可以更全面地了解过去，包括经常被忽视的共同损害和破坏的现实。