PERUVIAN FOLK DANCE CENTER ACADEMY 

Group project: Performed by ten kids from 5 - 10-year-old participants.

Duration: 1-hour weekly sessions for 4 months.
Location: Pineapple Studio, 7518 Madison St, Forest Park, IL 60130

​

Project description

​

In August and December of 2019, I worked for an hour each Saturday in a workshop on Peruvian Andean dance at The Peruvian Folk Dance Center in Forest Park, Illinois.

​

          For this project I worked with a group of ten children: four boys and six girls, all of whom were Hispanic from second- and third-generation Latin American families. All were bilingual, completely fluent in both Spanish and English. We met on Saturdays from 4 to 5 p.m. in order to develop and rehearse a set of indigenous Peruvian dances—dances that were part of a set called “Andes Llamkay” in Quechua, which means “Andean labor.” The controlling idea of these dances is to show the work practices of the Andean people. The students became very interested, both individually and as a group, in the indigenous games, different each day, which were used to help them learn new dance steps; meanwhile a number of the rehearsals were posted on such social networks as Facebook and YouTube so that members of the community could comment and all could be involved in the learning. Each educational session was directed so as to produce cognitive, social, and emotional reflections via the interpretation, reproduction and analysis of the Indigenous knowledge the students were learning.

​

Cognitive analysis is achieved via the significant acquisition of new Indigenous knowledge, i.e. how to model in movement the construction of a bridge, roof a house and dye wool with natural plant-dyes. This analysis leads to an understanding of the origin of the colors and Peruvian culture’s ancient construction techniques. Emotional analysis is carried out via the abilities acquired by the student during the classes: how to manage one’s emotions and how to perform and dress as, and apply the makeup of, an Indigenous person. It leads to self-development and a feeling of fullness at one’s interpretation, and builds self-esteem and family happiness. Social analysis is accomplished through such group and organizational interactions practiced in the indigenous communities as The Ayni, i.e. the labor system whose ethic is “Today for me, tomorrow for you.” It also depends on personal development in harmony with one’s living environment.

​

Location and setting

​

The Peruvian Folk Dance Center is an institution located in Forest Park, Illinois, that has supported the community since 2009, promoting and teaching popular Peruvian traditions through dance workshops that have involved over 3,000 families. People of all ages participate, from 5- year-olds through senior adults. The Center also offers support to secondary schools and universities, and will soon feature courses in music, theater, and the plastic Peruvian arts.

​

Story 

​

Findings and analysis

​

Children that attend this dance workshop typically come as a result of their parents’ interest in conserving Peruvian culture. Peruvian citizens married to U.S. citizens often lose contact with their culture once they have come to this land of the American dream; because they don’t practice it, don’t listen to its literature or music, they feel a great yearning for it—and are very happy to find it being enacted so far from home. For these reasons, they bring their children to the workshop so that they can become acquainted with Peru’s culture through the practice of indigenous dance; this is where the transmission of Peruvian culture begins for some and is revived for others, in the work that we are realizing.

​

         During the workshops, the role of indigenous games previously unknown in the learning of a step of dance woke an almost magical interest until then unexperienced by the students. Their response was always “again, again!” When a student is learning while playing, she almost doesn’t notice she is learning! The Indigenous technique that says “follow me” and other forms of teaching left the students feeling free to play, without fear of repeating themselves or making mistakes— and thus reinforced their self-esteem no matter how well they did. These Indigenous games often represent or interpret Nature in some form: animals, plants, rain, the sun and moon, water and fire are all evoked. Within the framework of play I began as the teacher, then gave each student the opportunity to act as the teacher. The game is based on the understanding that all things are alive, and that all things move differently: I might start by saying, “we are all trees,” then have us move like trees...but in reality, we are creating a dance step. As the professor, I began the class by showing the students how to make the movements of condors, snakes on the ground, llamas, skunks, bulls, sheep and other creatures. After I asked the question “Who wants to be the teacher?” a student volunteered and the rest of the class, including me, followed his/her/their instructions. I performed this activity with the students because I often confront problems of socialization or shyness and it encourages them to open up and lose some of their inhibitions. It also helps them learn that to lead a group requires determination and confidence in front of others; each day a new leader steps forward and thus progresses.

​

          The game of Yaku, or water, begins with the students taking the roles of the sun, the moon, and the eldest pongo, or water-keeper, who has in hand a branch. The other members of the group hold hands in a circle to represent water. The sun is found on the east side, the pongo is found outside of the circle and decides where the circle is going to rotate. The game begins, and the pongo moves in a clockwise and counterclockwise motion until the sun comes to the west side and goes down. Later the moon emerges in the west and the one playing the pongo is replaced by a new child, until the moon goes down in the west. This game models the value of taking care of the water of lagoons, or of a lake such as nearby Lake Michigan, of the planets in everyday indigenous life, and respect for Mother Earth and Her movements.

​

Because the children enjoyed my approach and the role-playing games it involved, they were always very motivated to participate—and when a child is motivated, she never grows tired! They enjoyed themselves, for instance, with a simple piece of wool, which they would drape their hands in or make a house out of; once the “house” had been constructed, one student would remain within it while the others danced about, delighted that their companion was safe inside. During the rehearsals I discovered that children liked the Indigenous dances because they comprised activities like “Tarpuy,” planting seeds—“Wasichakuy,” building a house or putting the roof on it—"Queswachaka, Ruway” or building a bridge throght grass rope —“Señalakuy,” pointing out a little bull? and dyeing the piece of wool with color. These ancestral activities, still carried out to this day, interest the children intensely as they dance, and convey core indigenous values through an activity that is both social and ceremonial.

​

         Many of the songs used to accompany indigenous dances are in indigenous tongues like Quechua. The children became enchanted with these after they learned what the lyrics meant. Again, a play set-up was used, with the female children first singing the words, then the males responding:

 

Figure 1. Pukllay or carnival dance lyrics from Ayacucho department.

                         

                                                 

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

 

 

 

Quechuan song is sweet, and always conveys a message of wisdom and good cheer. To the rhythm of the music, the students danced and sang in Quechua during the rehearsals. The benefits of this were brought home to me one day when a mother of one of the students told me “my son comes into the house singing this song—and when he keeps singing it, even his little brother begins singing it! They do know the song, and how to play with it” (Jacoby, R). This is a prime instance of language being learned through the power of Indigenous dance.

​

The songs, games and related activities learned during the preparation of the dance were very important—but the most important aspect of all was the students’ presentation of the dances in a theater. They had been waiting for and working towards this moment from the outset of our meetings, and were very excited. The presentation took place on a Friday at 7 p.m. in the auditorium of Chicago’s Cervantes Institute. When I asked the children beforehand why they seemed so excited, one responded “We feel like this because there are so many people here, and the lights are so bright! We are going to perform three dances, and we are in the dressing room like great artists!” (Student 1) Also, one of the mothers explained that “the kids like to dance because they get to go out at night, because people are going to applaud for them, because they get to try on their various dance costumes and dance in front of the lights and before such a great audience!” (Jacoby, R) The children I talked to agree on these reasons. The end of the event was great fun for them as well, as they got to come out into the foyer to take photos with their relatives and audience members, and received flowers and many congratulations. Through this special event the children developed their social skills and became messengers for the core values of the Indigenous world-view, meanwhile building their self-esteem.

​

The entire experience brought nothing but positive consequences to the participants; in particular, it taught them the significance and applicability of indigenous culture to their own lives and thinking, and the importance of respect. The students went back to their schools and dance programs with new insights and skills, emerging as leaders and improving their grades by the end of the school year. Their parents also affirmed that our program had awakened in their children new physical, social, sensory, and cognitive abilities, and had even improved their relations with Nature and life itself. We achieved our objective of preparing human beings for a better life through the medium of Indigenous dance.

At the end of the performance Guilmer Chumpitaz, the father of a student, approached with his daughter and said “I am so moved by what my daughter has done. Since I came to the United States fifteen years ago, I haven’t really thought much about Peru, and I have been forgetting my roots. But now that my daughter is dancing our national dances, I am returning to see my culture for the great one it is—and am even learning new things about it, thanks to my daughter.” This is a manifestation of the many powers of dance: here is a father being taught by a daughter who has learned the dances of his native land; and here is a father who can now transmit his reawakened sense of that culture’s value to his daughter in the United States—a country which is so distant both in space and culture from Peru.

As Rocio Jacoby, a teacher in the Oak Park School district, put it: “I want my children to learn about Peruvian culture as part of this world’s universal culture. When they arrive in Peru one day, they won’t feel like they don’t know anything about it.”

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​