Afro-Peruvian music
Template:Short description Afro-Peruvian music, African Peruvian music, Black Peruvian Music, Música afroperuana (Template:Langx), or Música negra (Template:Langx), is a type of Latin American music first developed in Peru by enslaved black people from West Africa, where it is known as Festejo. The genre is a mix of West African and Spanish music that express joy and culture.
Instruments
Música Criolla includes flamenco-influenced guitar sounds, as well as percussion instruments. Different kinds of instruments have been used throughout the evolution of Afro-Peruvian music, demonstrating the blending of Indigenous, European, and African influences overtime. This blending makes the genre a combination of musical traditions of storytelling and rhythmic phrasing with the use of multiple musical structures and instruments that changed over time because of different adaptations of instruments that were carried on to different time periods.
The instruments include:
- Gourds: Large gourds were dried and hollowed out to make different percussion instruments such as the Checo and different kinds of shakers. Before the creation of the cajón, gourds were used to create different rhythmic foundations during colonial times when Spanish authorities banned the use of traditional drums. As for shakers, they were hollowed out and filled with either seeds, pebbles, and or beans add texture and support rhythms made by the cajón
- Quijada: A donkey jaw cleaned from all the flesh and tissue. The teeth from the jaw are hit with a stick to make a rattle sound.
- Cajón: A large wooden box where people sit on and hit with their hands to make a beat for the song.
- Cajita: A small wooden box with a lid and a stick. It also has a sting attached to the sides of it to be worn. To play it, people open and close the lid while hitting it with the stick to create complex beats.
- Claves: 2 wooden sticks that are hit together to create the tempo.
- Quena: A flute made from bamboo or llama bone. This flute has 6 holes and adds more Andean culture <ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
History
Much of the original music has been lost, but in the 1950s a revival was staged by José Durand, a white Peruvian criollo who was a folklore professor, and Porfirio Vásquez. Durand founded the Pancho Fierro Dance Company. Drawing upon elderly members of the community for memories of musical traditions, Durand collaborated with Vásquez to revive various songs and dances to create the repertoire for the group. One of the best known is his revival of the carnival dance “El Son de los Diablos.” In colonial times, this dance was featured in parades with a fleet of austere, pure angels leading the way, followed by the mischievous devils. In the revival of the dance, the angels were eliminated, and the crowds were entertained by rambunctious devils and their leader “el diablo mayor.” The dance featured energetic zapateo tap-dancing. The group performed for about two years, including a concert for Peruvian composer Chabuca Granda and a tour through Chile.
Actually, poet Nicomendes Santa Cruz and Victoria Santa Cruz (siblings) both created Cumanana (1957) an Afroperuvian ensemble that highlighted the rich West and Central African call and response poetry, music / dance traditions that were a staple of Peruvian culture and are essentially valued to this day.
One long lasting Afro-Peruvian dance company was Perú Negro, which, incorporated more modern use of percussion combined with criollo music. Perú Negro is also known for their use of blackface, celebrating the mixture of African and Spanish heritage. Two of their best known pieces are “Dance of the Laundresses,” which depicts historical hard working yet beautiful black women in Peru, and the “Canto a Elegua,” which shows tribal religion before the Spanish influence.
Lima, Cañete and Chincha are areas where there are many performers of this music, which is played in night clubs, dinner dances and festivals.<ref name="MillerWilliams1998">Template:Cite book</ref> Notable artists and groups through the years have included Victoria and Nicomedes Santa Cruz, Ronaldo Campos, Caitro Soto, Lucila Campos, Pepe Vásquez, and Susana Baca.<ref name="OlsenSheehy2007">Template:Cite book</ref> One of the best known songs in the genre is Peru's "Toro Mata".
However, regardless of the reconstructed dances, there are manifestations that did last in time, such as the "Dance of Negritos and Pallitas" practiced at Christmas parties in the towns of the central-south coast of Peru.
See also
References
External links
- María Lamento, Peruvian Music
- Template:Usurped - folkloric dance company in Chicago that performs Afro-Peruvian and Andean dances.
- Peruvian Dance Company - San Francisco Bay Area's most prominent Peruvian dance troupe (Dancers Group).
- DE CAJóN Project - Seattle-based community arts organization dedicated to educating populations about the cultural contributions of Peruvians of African descent.