Two iron blades in one hand, a violin and a harp: how a scissors dancer earns his name, contests at the water festival that can last ten hours, how the blades are played, and who gave the dance its Spanish name.
In the Andes of south-central Peru, a dancer holds two loose metal blades in his right hand. Dancers call one blade the male and the other the female, and they clash them through contests that can last up to ten hours.
How a dancer is made
The scissors dance belongs to Quechua villages and communities in the south-central Andes of Peru. Its home is the mountains between Lima and Cuzco, in the regions of Ayacucho, Apurímac and Huancavelica. In Ayacucho the dancer is a danzaq, a Quechua word; Apurímac calls him a saqra and Huancavelica a gala.
He never performs alone. A dancer, a violinist and a harpist make up a team called a cuadrilla, and each cuadrilla represents its village. The skills tend to run in families. Learning starts with watching, as children copy the dancers and musicians they see at fiestas before anyone teaches them. The knowledge passes by word of mouth from master to student, the master is often a relative, and an apprentice may leave home to follow one. It takes years.
When a dancer has mastered the craft, his mentor gives him a new name, the one he dances under, and it is often embroidered on his costume. Dancers are often known by that name followed by their home town; one dancer from Puquio was known as Picaflor de Puquio, the hummingbird of Puquio.
The musicians train for years too, learning many tunes by ear from earlier fiestas. In Ayacucho, violinists tune higher than usual so the violin carries over the harp and the noise of the street. The violinist leads, playing the opening notes and calling each change of section, and his melody answers the dancer's moves.
The water festival in Andamarca
The big contests come in the dry months, in step with the farming calendar, and at Catholic feasts. In Andamarca, a town in Ayacucho's Lucanas province, the high point comes in late August. Before the rains, people clean out the irrigation channels so water can reach the fields, and then comes the water festival, whose main event is the scissors dance.
The dancers keep a relationship with the wamanis, the spirits of the mountains, and they make offerings before a contest at the four corners of the plaza. In these valleys the offerings go mainly to the earth and the mountain spirits. Then a team arrives with a pasacalle, a procession through the streets.
Villages hire their cuadrillas for the fiesta, and the contest happens in the main square. Two or more teams take turns, each dancer answering his rival with step-dancing and acrobatics, and the rounds grow harder. Costumes carry golden fringes, sequins and small mirrors, topped by a large hat called a montera. A fiesta runs over several days. UNESCO describes judges weighing the dancer's physical ability alongside the instruments and the musicians, and in many towns the judges are the public.
Late in a fiesta come the feats. The pasta mixes magic tricks with tests of resistance to pain, and in the torre bajay a dancer comes down a rope from the church tower. The UNESCO record notes that dancers in costume may not enter churches, because of a tradition that their skill comes from a pact with the devil. Even so, the dance is a popular part of Catholic festivities.
The blades up close
The dance takes its name from the blades. Each ends in a ring, like a scissor handle. UNESCO calls the metal iron; other accounts call it steel. The male blade is bigger and heavier and gives the lower note, while the female is smaller and lighter and rings higher. The dancer wears a glove on his right hand and holds both blades in it, his thumb through the ring of the male. The female stays still, and a turn of the wrist brings the male down onto it, in time with the violin and harp. Researchers class the blades as an idiophone, so the dancer is a musician too, and the nomination file says he must keep striking in time even through the acrobatics.
According to the nomination file, the blades and instruments must be consecrated in special rituals to gain their full virtues. Waterfalls are among the places where dancers are initiated, and an older master leads the offerings while the young learn by watching. The dancers' own accounts say the earliest pair were hard stones, and that metal blades came later.
Why it's on the list
UNESCO inscribed the scissors dance on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2010, at a committee meeting in Nairobi. The committee described a ritual passed from master to student that has become a symbol of the cultural identity of the people of the Peruvian Andes, and that keeps its meaning and social role in the cities. The dancers' associations started the nomination and took an active part in it, and Peru's Instituto Nacional de Cultura had declared the dance national cultural heritage in 2005, at the communities' request.
The Spanish name is credited to José María Arguedas, the twentieth-century Peruvian writer, while persecution of the dancers goes back to colonial times. In 1962 Arguedas published a short story about a dying scissors dancer, "La agonía de Rasu Ñiti".
In the Andes of south-central Peru, a dancer holds two loose iron blades in his right hand. Dancers call one blade the male and the other the female, and they clash them through contests that can last up to ten hours.
This is Ours to Keep. I'm Mira, and today: the scissors dance. I'm an AI voice; the facts come from official records and checked sources.
A dancer's name
The scissors dance belongs to Quechua villages and communities in the south-central Andes of Peru. Its home is the mountains between Lima and Cuzco, in the regions of Ayacucho, Apurímac and Huancavelica. Each region has its own word for the dancer. In Ayacucho he is a danzaq, a Quechua word. In Apurímac he is a saqra, and in Huancavelica he is a gala. The dance reaches into the north of Arequipa as well.
He never performs alone. A dancer, a violinist and a harpist make up a team called a cuadrilla, and each cuadrilla stands for its village. The skills tend to run in families. Researchers who work with the dancers describe whole lineages of performers, and many dancers come from families of dancers.
Learning starts with watching. Boys copy the dancers and musicians they see at fiestas, long before anyone teaches them. Many begin training as children or in their early teens. The knowledge passes by word of mouth, from master to student. Often the master is a relative. An apprentice may leave home to follow a master, and it takes years to become a dancer.
When a dancer has mastered the craft, his mentor gives him a new name. It is the name he dances under, and it is often embroidered on his costume. Dancers are often known by that name followed by their home town. One dancer from the town of Puquio, in Ayacucho, was known as Picaflor de Puquio, the hummingbird of Puquio. Popular belief once credited the great masters with powers to heal the sick and to see the future.
The musicians train for years too. A violinist has to know the tunes for every fiesta, including the tunes of other villages. Musicians learn many of them by ear, from hearing them at earlier fiestas. In Ayacucho, violinists often tune higher than usual, so the violin carries over the harp and the noise of the street.
The violinist leads. He plays the opening notes and calls each change of section, and his melody answers the dancer's moves.
As families moved from the mountains to Lima, the dance moved with them. Many dancers in the city also work other jobs. The dance has travelled further still. It has reached New York, carried there by dancers born in Ayacucho and Apurímac.
The water festival
The big contests come in the dry months, in step with the farming year, and at Catholic feasts. In Andamarca, a town in Ayacucho's Lucanas province, the high point comes in late August. Before the rains, people clean out the irrigation channels, so that water can reach the fields. The water festival follows. Its main event is the scissors dance.
The dancers' first duties are to the spirits. They keep a relationship with the wamanis, the spirits of the mountains, and they make offerings before a contest, at the four corners of the town square. Offerings in these valleys go mainly to the earth and to the spirits of the mountains.
Then the music moves. A team arrives with a pasacalle, a procession through the streets, and the musicians play as they walk. Villages hire their cuadrillas for the fiesta. The contest itself happens in the main square. Two or more teams take turns. Each dancer answers his rival with step-dancing and acrobatics, and every round is harder than the last. A winning team brings prestige home, and becomes a symbol of its village. The pieces have their own names, among them the ensayo, the tonada and the patara.
The costumes catch the light, with golden fringes, sequins and small mirrors. A dancer wears trousers called wara, a sash called a chumpi and handkerchiefs, with trainers on his feet. On his head sits a large hat called a montera. A single contest can last up to ten hours, and a fiesta runs over several days. The judges score the dancer's physical skill. They also listen to the musicians, and to how good the instruments sound. In many towns, those judges are the crowd itself.
Late in a fiesta come the feats. The pasta mixes tricks of magic with tests of a dancer's resistance to pain. In the torre bajay, a dancer comes down a rope from the church tower. The UNESCO record notes that dancers in costume may not enter a church, because of a tradition that their skill comes from a pact with the devil. Even so, the dance has become a popular part of Catholic feasts.
Up close
Up close, the scissors are not scissors at all. They are two separate blades of polished iron, shaped like the blades of a pair of scissors but never joined. Each blade ends in a ring, like a scissor handle. The UNESCO record calls the metal iron, while other accounts call it steel. The dance takes its name from these blades.
The two blades are not the same. Dancers call one the male and the other the female. The male is the bigger and heavier of the pair, and it gives the lower note. The female is smaller and lighter, and it rings higher.
The dancer wears a glove on his right hand, and both blades go into that hand. His thumb goes through the ring of the male blade. The female blade stays still, and a turn of the wrist brings the male down onto it.
The clash is struck in time with the violin and the harp, a bright jingle that marks the beat. So the dancer is also a musician. A study of the dance in Andamarca makes the same point: the dancers are musicians as well. Researchers class the blades as an idiophone, an instrument that sounds when its own body is struck, like a pair of castanets. The nomination file to UNESCO says the dancer must keep striking them in time with the music, even in the middle of the acrobatics. The blades keep ringing through steps as hard as dancing on one foot.
Scholars of the dance read the pair as complementary opposites, male and female, that work as one. Neither blade is ever played without the other.
The blades also have a ritual life. The nomination file says the blades and the musicians' instruments must be consecrated in special rituals to gain their full power. Waterfalls are among the places where dancers are initiated. An older master leads the offerings, and the young learn them by watching.
The blades have a past, too. The dancers' own accounts say the earliest pair were hard stones, struck together to ring out a rhythm. Metal blades took their place later.
Why it's on the list
So why is it on the list? UNESCO inscribed the scissors dance on its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2010, at a committee meeting in Nairobi. The committee pointed first to how the dance lives. It is a ritual passed from master to student, and it has become a symbol of identity for the people of the Peruvian Andes. It keeps its meaning and its social role even in the cities. UNESCO's description adds that the knowledge handed down is both physical and spiritual.
The committee expected the listing to make living heritage more visible, and to encourage dialogue between cultures, along with respect for cultural diversity and human creativity. The communities and the state set out plans for research, for recognising the tradition's bearers, and for a cultural centre to serve as an archive, a museum and a place to meet. The dancers themselves started the nomination through their associations, and took an active part in preparing it. Peru's National Institute of Culture had already declared the dance national cultural heritage in 2005, at the communities' request.
The surprise
You might think the name scissors dance is as old as the dance itself. In fact the Spanish name is credited to José María Arguedas, the twentieth-century Peruvian writer. Persecution of the dancers goes back to colonial times, centuries earlier. In the villages, the dancer still goes by regional names, such as danzaq in Ayacucho and gala in Huancavelica. Arguedas also gave the dancer a place in literature. In 1962 he published a short story about a dying scissors dancer, The Agony of Rasu Ñiti.
Tomorrow, we stay in the Andes for Cuzco, once the capital of the Inca empire, where Spanish churches and palaces rose over Inca stone.
