Saturday, August 20, 2011

La danza peruana

Today, CIEE had a cultural activity which consisted of two hours of learning the basic steps to traditional Afro-Peruvian dances and also some other Latin American dances.  The first dance we learned was the Festejo.  I don't really know how to explain the dances so I'm deciding to show you.  Obviously I don't expect you to watch ever video all the way through, but you can get a taste of what they are like...
This next one does need some explanation...The Alcatraz is a dance where the dancers hold candles and also wear a piece of paper on their backside like a tail.  The partners take turns light the other's "tail" on fire and the dancer's must move fast enough to put the fire out...see for yourself...
Next, is the Carnaval.  I couldn't find a good example video to show the style of Carnaval we learn, however I will say it was the easiest and probably my favorite of the day.  It is a high energy group dance and all the dancers form a circle and hold hands and just travel around the circle or everyone goes in the middle and back out, etc.

We then learned the Marinera and to be specific it was the Marinera Norteña.  The Marinera is the national dance of Peru.

Then the Huancayo...These little kids look better than I did.
We also did the Salsa, which originated in Cuba, and the Merengue, which started in La Republica Dominicana.  I'm not going to show videos of these because you've all probably heard of them, plus I think there are already enough videos on my blog.  :)  Overall, the whole dance workshop was a blast and I look forward to the next CIEE cultural activity, which is visiting the Museo de la Nacion in a couple of weeks.

2 comments:

  1. Now the dilemma of which of these to perform for the next International Dinner, huh?

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  2. When you come back, you can incorporate some of the aspects of the "alcatraz" dance into your Iluzion performance!

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