Aztec Music and Dance in California
A powerful expression of Indigenous and Mexican identity, Aztec dance has become a part of Mexican and Mexican American cultural life across North America. Kristina F. Nielsen examines California’s Aztec dance communities to illuminate how the dancers interpret authenticity, tradition, history, and Indigenous and national identities through their music and dance practices. Merging history with on-the-ground interviews, Nielsen looks at the different approaches to Aztec dance. Some dancers maintain practices as they have been passed down through lineages of hybrid Indigenous and Catholic practices. Others strive to restore traditions to what they believe they were in the early 1500s. Nielsen’s analysis examines Mexican and Mexican American understandings of Indigenous histories that inform these decisions by Aztec dancers, and considers the ways they intersect with decolonization in the United States. Enlightening and rigorous, Aztec Music and Dance in California takes readers into the dynamic world of an ever-evolving art form.
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Aztec Music and Dance in California
A powerful expression of Indigenous and Mexican identity, Aztec dance has become a part of Mexican and Mexican American cultural life across North America. Kristina F. Nielsen examines California’s Aztec dance communities to illuminate how the dancers interpret authenticity, tradition, history, and Indigenous and national identities through their music and dance practices. Merging history with on-the-ground interviews, Nielsen looks at the different approaches to Aztec dance. Some dancers maintain practices as they have been passed down through lineages of hybrid Indigenous and Catholic practices. Others strive to restore traditions to what they believe they were in the early 1500s. Nielsen’s analysis examines Mexican and Mexican American understandings of Indigenous histories that inform these decisions by Aztec dancers, and considers the ways they intersect with decolonization in the United States. Enlightening and rigorous, Aztec Music and Dance in California takes readers into the dynamic world of an ever-evolving art form.
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Aztec Music and Dance in California

Aztec Music and Dance in California

by Kristina F. Nielsen
Aztec Music and Dance in California

Aztec Music and Dance in California

by Kristina F. Nielsen

Hardcover(First Edition)

$110.00 
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    Available for Pre-Order. This item will be released on January 6, 2026

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Overview

A powerful expression of Indigenous and Mexican identity, Aztec dance has become a part of Mexican and Mexican American cultural life across North America. Kristina F. Nielsen examines California’s Aztec dance communities to illuminate how the dancers interpret authenticity, tradition, history, and Indigenous and national identities through their music and dance practices. Merging history with on-the-ground interviews, Nielsen looks at the different approaches to Aztec dance. Some dancers maintain practices as they have been passed down through lineages of hybrid Indigenous and Catholic practices. Others strive to restore traditions to what they believe they were in the early 1500s. Nielsen’s analysis examines Mexican and Mexican American understandings of Indigenous histories that inform these decisions by Aztec dancers, and considers the ways they intersect with decolonization in the United States. Enlightening and rigorous, Aztec Music and Dance in California takes readers into the dynamic world of an ever-evolving art form.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780252046957
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Publication date: 01/06/2026
Series: Music in American Life
Edition description: First Edition
Pages: 280
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Kristina F. Nielsen is an assistant professor of musicology at Southern Methodist University.
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