The Urbanization and Transnational Circulation of the Peruvian Scissors Dance

Abstract

This chapter uses the Peruvian scissors dance, an acrobatic ritual dance from one of the most marginalized regions of the Peruvian Andes, as a case study to investigate the cultural agency of virtuosic indigenous performers on the global stage. The scissors dance is a hybrid performance genre traditionally performed in local festivities, enacting a mysterious stock character engaged in a diabolic pact. The dancers are male specialists who perform in intense competitions of complex dance steps, acrobatics, and demonstrations of endurance and the ability to withstand pain. As a result of the displacements generated by urban migration, political violence, and globalization, the scissors dance has recently transformed into a primarily cosmopolitan Andean performance form. Once repudiated by colonial elites because it represented the survival of precolonial indigenous rituals, the scissors dance has become one of the most visible emblems of Andean identity on urban and transnational stages.