abstract
| - It would seem appropriate that the Día de la Música or Canción Criolla 2007 (Criolla Music Day) be dedicated to the music of the Earthquake Zone. Not only because it is a way for lovers of Peruvian music to pay their repects to the victims of the earthquake but also as an overdue recognition that the area has produced some of the greatest musical, lyrical and linguistic diversity present in a country already boasting “extreme” cultural variation. The reason for this diversity is historical: in addition to the seismic fault line running through the area there are also linguistic, and cutural “frontiers”. In language, the Yauyos community seem to be the survivors of the northward expansion of the Wari /Tiwanaku cultures and hold the key, many believe, to understanding the relationship between the evolution of the Quechua and Aymara language groups. In terms of culture the zone has/had the greatest concentration of Afro-Peruvians in the country (though many have migrated to Lima and further afield). All of which raises the question as to whether the term “Música Criolla” – or “Canción Criolla” as is more commonly heard – is sufficiently wide for a celebration of “peruanidad” (Peruvianess), juxtaposed as it is to the imported Haloween-fest. When I first went to Latin America 45 years ago, “criolla/o” meant, I think, “of Spanish heritage but born or created here” (Hispanic America). Today, at least in Peru, it does have a wider embrace . . . . .
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