Kaypi, Perú—“This Is Peru” in the indigenous Quechua language—highlights Peru’s rich and diverse cultural heritage and traditional arts. For the webcast portion of the festival, we recorded performances of Peruvian music and traditional dances performed by talented Peruvian artists. These performances include three dance styles from the diverse Peruvian culture.

The marinera, Peru’s national dance, finds its roots in the Spanish fandango, the African zamacueca, and traditional indigenous dances. It portrays a couple’s flirtatious pursuit, and each region of the country has its own variation. The norteña, or northern version of the dance, is characterized by more quick-paced tempo and is accompanied by a brass band. In the dance, the woman wears her town’s typical clothing, but dances barefoot, while the man dances in a chalán’s clothing, which includes a cotton poncho and a wide straw hat.

Another dance that varies by region, the folkloric huayno is a mélange of pre-Columbian and Western tradition. Typical instruments that are played during the dance are guitars, mandolins, charangos (lutes), violins, quenas (flutes), and the singers often do a bilingual performance in Spanish and Quechua, the language of the Incas, which still spoken today. The dance starts with the man inviting the woman to dance in an act called wayñukuy, and consists of vigorous feet stamping while the dancers swing back and forth to the music.

The festejo dance is one of the many that originated from the African traditions that were brought with slaves in the 17th century. They were brought to work in coastal agricultural areas of the Peruvian colonies, and their musical traditions mixed with the popular Spanish ones, creating what is now known as Afro-Peruvian music. The music is largely rhythm-based and is typically played on instruments like the cajón (drawer), the quijada de burro (donkey’s jaw), congas, and bongos, some of which were instruments they improvised from objects they found around them, seeing as they had few resources. The movements of the arms, hips, and skirts distinguish the festejo dance from others, as they complement the course of the dancing couple’s courting.

The muscians for these performances included Francisco Vega, Andres Mallea, Rodrigo Oyola, Guillermo Aguilar, Javier Canchay, Jose Sevilla, Victor Ruiz, Carlos Hurtado, and Walter Suarez. The dancers included Grisel Barrueto, Paola Valerio, Valeria Huachara, Roberto Tovar, Jordan Baldocea, Karim Mesa, Gisella Silvera, Victor Ruiz, Giancarlo Garcia, Danny Niquen, Jenny Tran, Bella Alejandrina, Willy Llamosa, Jose Alvarez, Carolina Betancourt, Brigitte Barrueto, Mario Bazan, and Jacky Gamboa.

This is the second of three performances that were webcast and recorded in the Potomac Atrium of the National Museum of the American Indian on July 28, 2017.

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