{"id":869,"date":"2015-01-25T15:36:47","date_gmt":"2015-01-25T15:36:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/?p=869"},"modified":"2015-01-26T12:12:43","modified_gmt":"2015-01-26T12:12:43","slug":"celebrating-ninon-sevilla-1929-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/2015\/01\/25\/celebrating-ninon-sevilla-1929-2015\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating Ninon Sevilla 1929-2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today,<\/em> Medi\u00e1tico presents a tribute to\u00a0Nin\u00f3n Sevilla, the Cuban-born actor who died on January 1 2015 at the age of 85. The tribute has been written by one of <\/em>Medi\u00e1tico‘s founding co-editors, Dolores Tierney<\/a>, Senior\u00a0Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Sussex and author of\u00a0<\/em>Emilio Fern\u00e1ndez: Pictures in the Margins (Manchester University Press, 2007<\/a>). Last year, Tierney published a co-edited anthology (with Deborah Shaw and Ann Davies)\u00a0<\/em>The Transnational Fantasies of Guillermo del Toro\u00a0(Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) which includes her\u00a0chapter on “Transnational Political\u00a0Horror in\u00a0<\/em>Cronos,\u00a0El espinazo del diablo, and\u00a0<\/em>El laberinto del fauno“. She also recently co-edited\u00a0<\/em>Cinema Journal’s\u00a0In Focus feature (with Ana L\u00f3pez) on “Latin American Film Research in the Twenty-First Century”, which included her essay\u00a0“Mapping Cult\u00a0Cinema in Latin American Film Cultures,” and she also produced an InMediaRes post\u00a0“Reflections on Film Scholarship and the Internet”<\/a>.\u00a0She is currently completing\u00a0a book about transnationalism and film directors across Latin American cinema (for Edinburgh University Press).<\/em><\/p>\n

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Celebrating Nin\u00f3n Sevilla 1929-2015<\/strong><\/p>\n

By Dolores Tierney<\/p>\n

It was with some sadness that I learned, earlier this month, about the death of Nin\u00f3n Sevilla, Cuban-born star of classical Mexican cinema and latterly character actress of Mexican telenovelas. When I first encountered her in film, largely via the work of John King<\/a> and Ana L\u00f3pez, I found her thrilling and amazing. Already a fan of the dancing in the American film musical, I found Sevilla\u2019s gyrations in Mexican films a revelation.<\/p>\n

Sevilla was one of\u00a0several Cuban rumberas <\/em>(dancers) who flourished in the classical Mexican cinema of the late 1940s and early 1950s. Sevilla, Maria Antonieta Pons and Rosa Carmina became famous in the singularly Mexican genre of the cabaretera<\/em> \u2013a brothel melodrama\/musical hybrid featuring lavish musical numbers, gritty drama and copious amounts of suffering. The protagonists of these films were often virtuous young women reduced to a life of sin by forces “beyond their control.” They were either dancers (ficheras<\/em>) paid tokens (fichas<\/em>) to dance (but also sleep) with their clients or nightclub dancers (rumberas<\/em>) who were also, (the narratives made clear) expected to sleep with clients. Whilst the protagonists of the fiercely patriarchal cabareteras<\/em> were often defined through the sacrifice of their bodies as sexual objects for men and for their families, Sevilla (and the other Cuban rumberas), could also portray overt sexuality enjoying the dance, their bodies and shockingly their own desire.[1. In one scene in the year 1949 remake of\u00a0La mujer del puerto\u00a0<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(Emilio G\u00f3mez Muriel) Maria Antonieta Pons does a sultry solo dance to a jazz number for Tito Junco, who\u00a0spoiler alert<\/strong>\u00a0turns out to be her brother. The clip I\u2019m referring to starts at 3m55s.]<\/p>\n

Although the characters Sevilla played were mostly Mexican, it was enough that as a blonde, exotic beauty, she looked, spoke and moved like she was from somewhere else, for these displays to be permissible within the boundaries of conservative classical Mexican cinema.<\/p>\n

And it was Sevilla\u2019s overt, sexuality that make her so exciting and the dances she choreographed and appeared in\u00a0(most of which were predominantly Afro-Cuban in style)\u00a0so jaw-droppingly amazing. Take for instance a scene in Emilio Fern\u00e1ndez\u2019 V\u00edctimas del pecado<\/em><\/a> (1949) where Sevilla\u2019s character Violeta performs an impromptu rumba\u00a0(this comes at about 1h 8 mins into the film).<\/p>\n

\"V_ctimas_del_pecado-165721417-large\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The spontaneity of her performance is emphasised by the fact that she is not wearing the rumbera<\/em> outfit (which would usually expose thighs, stomach and breasts), but a more demure evening dress (which has the effect of making her less of an object of male voyeurism). Violeta dances freestyle initially in front of the band, half facing toward them, taking her cue from their rhythms. She then drags one of the black musicians up to dance with her. Although they dance together, they do not hold each other, but mirror each other\u2019s steps in a kind of duel format \u2013 she does a step and then he answers with a different step. The smiles on their faces suggest\u00a0that they are taking mutual pleasure from each other\u2019s dance. At one point she lies on her back and at another she wiggles her behind in his face. It is an immensely erotic sequence and highly unusual in classical Mexican cinema because of its interracial nature \u2013 a white woman dancing with a black man. As with many of Sevilla\u2019s numbers this dance sequence works against the containing patriarchy and racial ideology of Mexican cultural nationalism.[2. Tierney, Emilio Fernandez <\/em>(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007), 139.]<\/p>\n

The French critics loved Sevilla. Raymond Borde said of her \u201cNinon Sevilla est la seule danseuse qui aille aussi loin dans la simulation de l\u2019acte sexuel. Son attitude favorite : renvers\u00e9e sur le dos, les jambes pli\u00e9es et palpitantes\u201d.[3. Positif<\/em> n\u00b0 10, 1954 “Ninon Sevilla is the only dancer to go this far in the simulation of sex. Her favourite position is to lie on her back, her legs bent and trembling” (!).] When V\u00edctimas del pecado<\/em> premiered in France in 1952 it was a huge success, and many French critics preferred it to the film that made her a star Aventurera <\/em>(Alberto Gout, 1949).<\/p>\n

\"Aventurera<\/a><\/p>\n

My love of Sevilla in the classical cabareteras<\/em> stemmed not just from the fact that could sexually circumvent many of its ideological norms. I also loved her because, although patriarchy victimised her, she was almost never a victim<\/em>. She conveyed herself as an active, thinking woman, with a keen sense\u00a0of the ideologies that repressed her and other women. Her\u00a0proto-feminist self awareness is suggested\u00a0in a musical\u00a0sequence from Aventurera<\/em> where music acts subjectively to give an insight into what she is thinking.<\/p>\n