La Cueca

Chile's National Dance is called La Cueca. Much like the cumbia and zamba that trace back to a mixture of cultures so does La Cueca. It's roots are a  mixture of African and Indigenous cultures. Chilean people had been dancing it for years, but it was not declared the official dance until September 1979.

 
In Pepe's Chile he explains the choreography of La Cueca:
 "The Cueca is a parody of the courtship of a chicken and rooster. The dancers wave handkerchiefs above their heads during the dance. These handkerchiefs can symbolize the feathers of the bird or the rooster’s comb.The choreography (movements) of the Cueca consists of circles, moving in semicircles back and forth (known as half moons), and turning towards the partner and then away.The dance happens in an imaginary circle, with the man in one half, and the woman in the other. It starts with a promenade where the man invites the woman to join him by offering his arm. This is done while instrumental entry music is played. The couples stand facing each other about three meters apart. Before the song begins, the couple claps their hands in rhythm of the music."http://www.joeskitchen.com/chile/2007/08/24/chiles-national-dance-the-cueca/
 
It is said that Chileans associated La Cueca with Pinochet's dictatorship. The music of the cueca can be linked to American blues. The dance golden years were in the 1930's thought the 1940's were the best music came from the poor .The dance is also about the romantic conquest of love. People had a connection with La Cueca, that is until Pinochet made La Cueca part of his parades, glorifying his dictatorship; the dance became a symbol of the dictatorship. A student at the University of Chile stated, ""The dictatorship brought repression; it relied on fear and distrust ... One of the important symbols [of the dictatorship] was the cueca, and it canonized the cueca to a point that many youth rejected the official cueca."
 
During the dictatorship there was a new Cueca developed. Many men were taken to the National

Stadium were they were tortured or murdered. So many women would dance La Cueca alone in protest, this dance is known as La Cueca Sola. This connection of La Cueca and dictatorship is now disappearing. People dance La Cueca to help reduce stress as well as to sing loudly. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120619384 

La Cueca Traditional

 

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGKLjVg1nIU Click on this video to see women dance Cueca Sola. These women say the names of their loved ones who disappeared or were killed during the dictatorship. This clip is also part of Chile's No Campaign that I will talk about in another blog.