Zamacueca dances and music

It seems as if lots of Peruvian music listed as what we in the U.S. would recognize as a "song" is in fact a family of songs.  So it is with the Zamacueca.

We have a performance of a Zamacueca in our documentary, and also have the music on our CD.  In our version....it's lively, it's fun, and the words, well...it's about farm workers (and originally, slaves) working in the fields in the sun all day, cutting sugar cane, which is back-breaking work, to make money for the boss.  The song makes it clear that the boss is not a nice person, and mostly, the workers are thinking about how much hard work they have to do.

Below, you have "our" version of the Zamacueca.



But in the performance, it looks and sounds like everyone is having a good time.  And I'm sure they are.  Not only are they seeming to be having fun, they are choosing partners.  It's a pretty sexy dance.

The singing in the fields reminds me of flamenco, and yes, there is a real connection.  Bear with me.

Many of the current generation of flamenco singers, dancers, palmeros, etc....many of the current generation of middle-aged people in southern Spain, including gitanos (Gypsies) and payos, come from parents who were farm workers.  Not all, of course, but an awful lot.

And they tell me that their parents (and in some cases, older brothers and sisters), when working in the fields, sang.  This is where a lot of flamenco comes from.  They sang in order to make the time pass faster, in order to take their minds off the hard work they were doing, with their backs hurting, with not having enough to eat, with the hardships they were enduring.

I think this is pretty common for people who work in the fields.  It is not easy work.

So that's where at least one branch of the Zamacueca, comes from.

And if you wonder about my wandering off into field work in Spain, and gitanos...well, according to Wikipedia, the entire zamacueca group of dances is a mix of influence from Angolan slaves, gitanos, and  the criollos and mulatos of 18th century Peru.  Got that?  Gitanos....from Andalucia, no less.

Just for the record, here's another Zamacueca...very different.  It's all about flirting, but not so sexy.  And no back-breaking work here.



OUR NEXT POST will be about our acceptance into a festival in Berlin, Germany, and other exciting news.