About Elizabeth Schwall
San Jose, California
Elizabeth Schwall (CBA ’19) earned her Ph.D. in Latin American and Caribbean history from Columbia University in 2016 and held a Mellon Dance Studies in/and the Humanities Postdoctoral Fellowship at Northwestern University in 2016-2018. Her first book project, based on her dissertation, examines Cuban dance and politics from 1930 through 1990. She is also working on written and digital projects about Cuban dancers in Chicago. Her research has appeared or will appear in the journals Hispanic American Historical Review, Dance Chronicle, Cuban Studies, and two edited volumes. She has written book reviews for Dance Research Journal, Cuban Studies, and New West Indian Guide/Nieuwe West-Indische Gids, entries to the Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism and Dictionary of Caribbean and Afro-Latin American Biography, as well as pieces on recent Cuban dance developments for Cuban Art News.
“My body is my Patria”: Ballet, Race, Ethnicity, and Community in the Cuban Diaspora
Schwall’s project consists of two articles-in-progress on Cuban ballet dancers and teachers living and working in the United States. The first analyzes Cuban ballet artists in Miami, Pennsylvania, and San Francisco – from famous stars to teachers and students of small studios – to examine the place of ballet for the larger community of displaced Cubans. The second investigates the life and career of Caridad Martínez, the first African descended professional ballerina in Cuba and current ballet mistress at Ballet Hispánico.
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