Valeska Díaz Soto
Rethinking Indigenous (Animal) Dance Rituals in Latin America
In this research project, I aim to develop an ethnography of animal dances and ritual in close collaboration with Indigenous communities in Latin America. Dance has been essential in human history and is fundamental in conceiving the self and the other. If humans are considered as homo ludens (Huizinga 1956), dance can be understood as a playful and interactive dimension shaping the dynamics of social groups. Similarly, animals are important in the ways humans relate to their environment. Indigenous communities in particular have made use of animals, often considered sacred, as mediating entities between human and nature, between present and origin, because “animals came from over the horizon, they belonged there and here. Likewise, they were mortal and immortal” (Berger 2009:4). In this vein, I seek to analyze the social dynamics of performative animal representations within Indigenous groups through dance in Latin America. I regard dances as a way of connecting with the non-human, as well as with Indigenous origins and experiences of transcendence.