Political partnering:the dance of US diplomacy in Latin America

World War II is understood as the United States’ anti-Nazi European battle, and the Cold War brought the Soviet threat, yet in both cases, Latin America was the first “soft power” cultural battleground for the United States (US) because of the continent’s strategic import for the United States. Initiated during the interwar period, dance as diplomacy with embedded propaganda messages served US aims. Through the Cold War, the private sector cooperated with the US government to promote American freedom of expression to fight the threat of fascism and communism. Interwar modernist ballet was followed by modern dance, a uniquely American genre that brought the promise of a “universal” freedom for “mankind.” Across government administrations, Democratic and Republican from 1940 through 1960, dance repertories exported under the State Department demonstrated not only freedom but also cultural finesse, and offered what Phillips calls “cultural convergences,” in which the choreographers and dance works demonstrated that the United States was a partner of the host country.