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From the last years of the nineteenth century until the first decades of the twentieth, the inhabitants of Rio de Janeiro witnessed a new social phenomenon: the proliferation, in every neighbourhood, of small dance clubs formed by workers. Noteworthy among them was the Flor do Abacate, a recreational society founded in 1906 by a group of men and women of African descent. Far from making any claim to ‘being African’, this association promoted balls and parades in which African cultural heritage was shown in conjunction with other cultural logics valued as modern and cosmopolitan. As a consequence, it constituted a model of recreational society, black and modern at the same time, which its members tried to associate to a national profile. The objective of this article is to analyse both the logic that explains the organisation of this dance society and the challenges that its members faced in consolidating it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the promotion of Mexico's national image in the Americas during the Cárdenas period, using as a starting point a scandal arising from a 1940 performance of Mexican dancers at a cabaret in Panama. Mexican diplomats found the show objectionable because it clashed with the image of women that they used in their efforts to raise the country's reputation abroad. By investigating these efforts, as well as the career of Eva Pérez Caro, the dance troupe's leader, the article contributes to our understanding of the relationship between gender, cultural performance and nationalism, and the role that they played in Mexico's foreign relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]