Zapateo

One of the things that our documentary A Zest for Life illustrates is Afro-Peruvian zapateo footwork.  Here is an example of Caitro Soto (who you will remember from an earlier blog) doing zapateo along with Eusevio Sirio "Pititi."  Zapateo was formerly done only in dances like the "hatajo de negritos" and the "son de los diablos" -- things you can see and enjoy in A Zest for Life.



But currently, zapateo is also done for show, and when two dancers or Afro-Peruvians guys get together, kind of as a form of friendly competition.

In the largely Afro-Peruvian town of el Carmen, in southern coastal Peru, boys do zapateo in the town plaza for tourists (who I assume give them tips).  The people of that town are very poor, and I've noticed in some of the early photos and videos of these kids, some of them are barefooted but in later photos, they are all wearing pretty new looking shoes.  Tips can serve a very good purpose.

Boys in el Carment doing zapateo.  Copyrighted photo--don't try to download!

The photo of the boys above is copyrighted (and here used with permission).  It comes from Hugo R. Miller, aka Hugeaux Photography and can be found on YouTube in his "Hugeaux Photography, el Carment, Peru part 3 FINAL 'The beautiful people of  el Carmen-Chincha-Ica.  Peru" (LINK).

Lots of people in the predominantly Afro-Peruvian town of el Carmen, in southern, coastal Peru, learn zapateo, not just little boys looking for spending money.  And the reason is because this town is a center for the preservation and performance of the "hatajo de negritos," which is done for religious purposes--namely, the celebration of the birth of baby Jesus.

El Carmen the town is predominantly Catholic, and December 24 and 25 are very important holidays.  The "hatajo de negritos" is an integral part of the celebration, in which organized groups that have rehearsed together for months in advance dance for hours to honor Jesus.  In the past, it was only boys and men who were part of these dancing groups, but girls are now welcomed as well, at least in some of the groups. 

In A Zest for Life, we see zapateo of both kinds--as part of the religious celebration, and as a staged performance.  In the studio, Lalo Izquierdo and two performers from de Rompe y Raja (Gabriela Shiroma and Pedro Rosales) did a version, while the documentary also contains zapateo performed in el Carmen.  Here's what we videotaped in the studio:



You will notice that in the top video, the zapateo is done as a kind of friendly competition--"here´s what I can do, let´s see if you can top it."  In our studio, however, it was presented as a master (Lalo Izquierdo) teaching two very apt pupils.

OUR NEXT POST will be about Afro-Peruvian jazz, Latin jazz, and what´s in a name.