Week 9 question

On page 172 of Nor-Tec Rifa, Madrid explains that Nor-Tec is a fantasy. This connected with me. Images of losing oneself in the music on a dance floor popped into my head, and all of his claims were instantly true. He writes: "Nor-Tec is a fantasy that ameliorates ethnic, racial, and gender roles and class conditions that contradict these desires while at the same time contesting them, providing a site for their performative reconfiguration." This incredibly powerful statement makes me wonder, do we have something this powerful and equalizing in American music? A style of music that draws everyone together, no matter what gender, race, or class, while at the same time individualizing them as they all dance in their own personal style?

The passion and conviction with which Madrid speaks of the Nor-Tec dancing brings to mind all of the different languages Anzaldua spoke of in her book, except in a more positive light. A person's Nor-Tec dance is an individual preference, much like language, only without the stigma. Everyone is free to dance as they please, free of judgment. Are we capable of expressing more through dance than we think? How powerful is the language of dance? Madrid points out that Nor-Tec dance is "a canvas for the projection and reconfiguration [...] of social representation and self identification." To me, it sounds like he is speaking of a language so much that it is uncanny. If language was treated with the same freedom and acceptance as dance, would border relationships change?