CHILE: The festive essence of the cueca brava, a traditional dance, is being rediscovered

Record ID: 364973

  • Title: CHILE: The festive essence of the cueca brava, a traditional dance, is being rediscovered
  • Date: 30th June 2010
  • Summary: SANTIAGO, CHILE (RECENT) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) MUNOZ SAYING: "The cueca loses its essence when it starts to follow laws. And the laws of the competitions are a little oppressive; haircuts, designed costumes, precise movements. These are things that push me away because the cueca is something free, of the people. It represents people's essential freedom. It's a example of Chile's independence, a product of Chile's independence, it's desire for freedom."
  • Embargoed: 15th July 2010 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Chile
  • Country: Chile
  • Topics: Arts / Culture / Entertainment / Showbiz,Light / Amusing / Unusual / Quirky
  • Reuters ID: LVAAGLT5ZB9KGLZVMHIW2PPA894H
  • Story Text: One of Chile's oldest dances is the latest thing in the capital Santiago. The cueca brava or simply cueca, a traditional dance, is returning to its roots and enjoying a resurgence in the Chilean capital.
    Dating back to the colonial era, the partners' dance simulates mutual seduction. Driven by folk music - guitars, accordions, and percussion - and suggestive lyrics, a man and woman dance in a circle, growing close and drawing away while waving handkerchiefs.
    The dance's golden age in the capital Santiago was in the 1930s and 40s, but it slowly was slowly transformed and repressed, mutating to the point of disappearance during the military dictatorship (1973-1900).
    Daniel Munoz, an actor who has been a vocal proponent for the resurgence of the cueca, said the dance didn't bode well with the military regime's socially conservative ideology.
    "With all the crazy people dancing, the chaos, the drunks and all that, people didn't understand what it was about. People said, this can't be our traditional Chilean dance. Obviously, they buried it, they marginalized it and transformed it into this saccharine cueca, a whitewashed postcard where the men and women dance with costumes made by fashion designers for the occasion. It's all ordered, controlled, like a master controls his horse, with reins. And of course this was about to eliminate the cueca of the people, the real cueca," Munoz told Reuters recently.
    On the surface, the dance stayed alive. It was even performed in ceremonies in front of dictator Augusto Pinochet, who's crackdown on suspected 'leftist subversives' left as many as 3195 dead or 'disappeared' and around 28,000 tortured.
    But Munoz said the dance, which started in the country but became popular in bars and brothels in Santiago, lost its true essence when it was sanitized for the establishment.
    "The cueca loses its essence when it starts to follow laws. And the laws of the competitions are a little oppressive; haircuts, designed costumes, precise movements. These are things that push me away because the cueca is something free, of the people. It represents people's essential freedom. It's a example of Chile's independence, a product of Chile's independence, it's desire for freedom," he said.
    Now young people flock to Santiago clubs like this one, 'El Huaso Enrique' or 'The Cowboy Enrique', where a more traditional form of cueca is practiced.
    Sandra Cerda said the new movement represents a lifting of a veil of fear left behind by the dictatorship.
    "I think the military dictatorship killed us. I think all the bohemians in Chile left and just now it's starting to take off again," Cerda said.
    Some music historians in Chile trace the name cueca back to clueca, the mating dance performed by hens trying to attract roosters. But it was precisely the suggestive nature of the dance that was cut out when it passed through the filter of the dictatorship.
    Now, with young people again taking the reins, Munoz said the true spirit is being revived.
    "The freedom of young people is what is now carrying the cueca. The cueca grabbed onto young people to be reborn. There was a good fusion there and that's why this is happening," Munoz added.
    The dance, traditionally practiced around Chile's Independence Day on September 18, is becoming a nightly occurrence in Santiago's restaurant and bars.
    Carmen Gloria Araya, the owner of 'El Huaso Enrique', said her club is just one of a number of places where young people gather to dance.
    "This is a place to come and dance all year long. Here you don't need September 18. I think it's one of the emblematic places. There have been a number of places besides this one where we started to dance cueca and promote our dance in the country,"
    And even though the dictatorship ended 20 years, many Chileans feel they are just now starting to discover their own culture again.
    "It's a dance that is ours, but it all has flavor and charm and passion that I don't think are found in other dances," said dance student Carolina Lumicio recently during a class.
    Other signs the cueca is reentering the popular lexicon include a recent song dedicated to Chile's soccer coach Marcelo Bielsa, the Argentine national who led Chile to a World Cup berth.
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