La lucha por un “sueño americano”Lincoln Kirstein frente a la “conspiración” del ballet ruso antes de la Guerra Fría

Résumé

In the pamphlet Blast at Ballet: A corrective for the American audience (1937), Lincoln Kirstein explained his plan to create an “American” ballet and the “conspiracy” that restrained its progress, i.e. the success of the emblematic Ballets Russes’ heirs with the complicity of the American’s managers, critics and audience. The aim of this paper is to analyse the Kirstein’s ideological and aesthetic discourse regarding the Russian ballet during the pre-Cold War years, as well as his utilitarian look at Latin American art in the context of Roosevelt’s “Good Neighbor” policy. Therefore, by means of sources which are virtually unknown out of the Anglo-saxon research field such as the aforementioned pamphlet and the documents related to the Latin American tournée (1941) of the American Ballet Caravan, I will show the ideological foundation of Kirstein’s “American dream” and the political circumstances that surrounded it.