Hidden Figures: Victoria Santa Cruz #BlackHERstoryMonth 10/28 (Patreon)

Hidden Figures: Victoria Santa Cruz #BlackHERstoryMonth 10/28

Victoria Eugenia Santa Cruz Gamarra was an Afro-Peruvian choreographer, composer, and activist. Called "the mother of Afro Peruvian dance and theatre,” along with her brother, Nicomedes Santa Cruz, she is credited as significant in a revival of Afro-Peruvian culture in the 1960s and 1970s. Cruz was born in Lima, Peru, to Nicomedes Santa Cruz Aparicio and Victoria Gamarra. Cruz grew up immersed in music, dance, and literature, and started working on stage with the group Cumanana in 1958, along with her younger brother, a famous poet. Cruz was very interested in Black American and West African culture, dancing the Charleston and researching the ties between Africa and Peru. This led to her becoming one of the major players in the revival of Afro-Peruvian culture and Afrocentrism in Peru that took place during the 1960s and 1970s; under the direction of Cruz and her brother, theatrical productions reconnected Black Peruvians with their African past, inspired by African independence movements and and Black rights movements in America and abroad. She received a scholarship by the French government and traveled to Paris to study choreography. Here, she succeeded as the creator and designer of the wardrobe for the play El Retablo de Don Cristóbal by Federico García Lorca. Back in Peru, she founded the dance company Teatro y Danzas Negras del Perú, with whom she presented many shows in national theaters and television. This group represented Peru in the festivities for the occasion of the Olympic Games in Mexico, 1968 where they received a medal and diploma for their work. Later, in 1969 she left on a tour to different cities in the United States and when she came back to Lima in May, she was named director of the Centro de Arte Folclórico, today Escuela de Folklore. In the first Festival and Latin American Seminary of Television organized by Catholic University of Chile in 1970 she won the award for the best folklorist, and the next year she was invited by the government of Colombia to participate in the Festival of Cali. She participated as the scene director for the first Black Art Festival of Peru in 1971. In addition to her choreography and music composition, Cruz was also a poet, with one of her most well-known works being “Me Gritaron NEGRA” or, 'They Called Me Black.’ “Me Gritaron NEGRA” is a poem which follows Santa Cruz’s journey to accept and embrace her blackness, starts out with her telling the story of how at the a very young age started to shout “Negra” (the spanish word for Black) at her on the street everywhere she went. This shamed her into straightening her hair and wanting to lighten her skin but eventually she realized the beauty of her blackness and that the truth of this beauty was being hidden from her. Cruz died in 2014, at 91, in her native Peru. #VictoriaSantaCruz #HiddenFigures ****************** Merchandise! MAKE SURE U GETTA SHIRT!! https://www.teepublic.com/user/sssseren Follow me on social media! Twitter: @seren_sensei Instagram: @sensei_aishitemasu Personal Tumblr: http://sensei-aishitemasu.tumblr.com Tumblr for my work: https://sssseren.tumblr.com Snapchat: sssseren GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/tc5wh7q Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/seren_sensei ****************** Did you know I wrote a book? ☺️ 'So, About That... A Year of Contemporary Essays on Race and Pop Culture' Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/About-That-Contemporary-Essays-Culture-ebook/dp/B013V0CHK6 Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B013V0CHK6 Digital download (e-book): https://gumroad.com/l/IkUa ****************** Links: Victoria Santa Cruz- Me gritaron negra/ They called me black (woman)- Poem with english subtitles (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZBHvMaTiuU Black Rhythms of Peru: Reviving African Musical Heritage in the Black Pacific (Googlr Books): https://books.google.com/books?id=IUeT3eoU7VUC&pg=PA49#v=onepage&q&f=false An Interview with Victoria Santa Cruz: http://muse.jhu.edu/article/434356 Victoria Cruz Obituary: https://elcomercio.pe/luces/musica/murio-victoria-santa-cruz-difusora-cultura-negra-176291 AN INTERVIEW WITH VICTORIA SANTA CRUZ: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41243069?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents 'These Young Afro Latinas Reciting Victoria Santa Cruz’s “Me Gritaron Negra” Will Give You LIFE!' https://www.watchtheyard.com/activism/afro-latina-me-gritaron-negra-1/ 'This Little Girl Reciting Victoria Santa Cruz’s Poem ‘Me Gritaron Negra’ Is Everything:' http://remezcla.com/culture/victoria-santa-cruz-me-gritaron-negra-little-girl/ https://www.facebook.com/manglartv35uhfsl/videos/789177551186525/ Victoria Santa Cruz (Wikipedia): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Santa_Cruz