José Rodeiro GUEGUENSE DANCING NEAR MOMOTOMBO oil-on-canvas 36” x 48,” for a proposed mosaic-mural 10’ x 12,’ 1995. (Painting in Collection of University of Central America (UCA), Managua, Nicaragua)

Fr. Xavier Goastiaga, SJ, Rector , University of Central America [(UCA), Managua (Nicaragua)] commissioned this ornate and flamboyant work as a maquette for a mosaic mural (for the UCA’s History Building). The image depicts cavorting Gueguense dancers clashing in a choreographed mêlée. A Gueguense folkloric copla is a comic dance of defiance against Spanish colonial rule; where dancers disguised and wearing masks of either grotesquely handsome fair-skinned Spaniards or mules (machos), representing colonial Nicaragua’s subjugated Amerindian-culture. In the copla, primarily male dancers uniformly prance, hop, and skip, as they play various roles. Significantly, in the Gueguense dance, the machos always comically outwit the imperialists. (Photograph by Dieter Stadler, Director, Casa de Tres Mundos, Granada, Nicaragua).