PERUVIAN INDIGENOUS DANCE

Peruvian Indigenous dance has its origins in such of the land’s Pre-Incan cultures as the Moche (La Chioma, 2019, p. 192). The Incan Empire was able to conserve the festive character of Pre- Incan cultures through the practice of a variety of arts, with examples in dance being the K’aswa, or Handholding Dance in Gratitude to the Earth, and the Huayno or Wayñu in the Quechuan tongue, which signifies he who dances. Many of the dances go forward to the type of Andean music known also as huayno, which can vary somewhat depending on its geography of origin. Traditional Peruvian dances represent or comment on such foundational events/experiences of life as birth, adulthood, marriage and death. They also abstract or stylize through their movements such common Indigenous activities as farming, ranching, bridge- and roof-building, dyeing of wool, rituals, battles and historical processes. There are also dances which express the Andean world-view or “cosmic vision” by modelling worship of Life, Water, their Deities or natural forces, and of Pachamama, or “Mother Earth.” All are connected in their emphasis on Spirit, Nature and Community. The dances also preserve and honor the traditional dualism through which Indigenous people understand the places they live: either the Urin (those who live below) or the Hanan (those from above)—as well as the feminine and masculine, represented by the Sun, the Moon, and Mother Earth, and la chackitaclla (tools for opening the earth.)

Many of the Indigenous dances which are danced today continue to maintain their traditional character, while some have changed with the incorporation of post-Conquest Spanish elements; still others have disappeared altogether. Peru has 24 departments and 1800 districts, with over 5,000 farming communities. These are where the legacy is kept alive—which includes over 2,000 traditional dances still existing in Peru.

The Indigenous Peruvian writer José María Arguedas, recognized as the father of Peruvian folklore, was a novelist who detailed the abuse and exploitation of Peruvian Indigenes by white Europeans. He knew well whereof he wrote, having been raised among the oppressors as the pale- skinned son of an attorney. In his works Arguedas describes the many different traditions of the Indigenous communities, pausing at one point to declare the depth of the dances’ meaning for their members: “The great forces of Nature, which remain beyond their understanding, continue living and are given human form; in the great festivals, a brilliant dancer will represent these forces, and as he dances in the streets, he is their living image, their soul, and their own spirit that comes to mix with the village’s people—to participate in their joys, their inebriations and their tears” (Arguedas, 1989, p. 88 in (López, 2015, p. 300)).