Valicha Dance - Making the bridge o CHAKA in quechua language
Ruben Pachas and Jessica Loyaga are the founder of Peruvian Folk Dance center — Chicago-based Peruvian indigenous art education and research practice focused on cultivating, promoting, and collaborative organizing interdisciplinary projects looking at the conservation the ancestral values through Peruvian indigenous arts practice, with emphasis on exchange and communication across disciplines.
Using the indigenous educational creative technique and an education design with engagement interventions that address the complexity of urban systems and social equity by looking at intersections between music, theater, and visual arts. All these steps are through planning and community participatory processes.
Last Jan 27, 2022, Ruben Pachas was invited to Elmhurst University, Sociology department to share the knowledge about Ancestral Homeland from Peru, through a music and dance workshop, talking about National dance of Peru “huayno” and ancestral and colonial instruments. With the singular success with the workshops with the participation of the undergraduate students and the professor Emily M. Navarro, Ph.D. in Sociology, the outcomes obtained were more than we expected, the students understood the cultural values of the Peruvian ancestral indigenous cultures.
Thank you to Elmhurst University, to Professor Emily M. Navarro, Ph.D. in Sociology for having our cultural work and for making this event possible.
Peruvian workshop
Valicha Huayno - Full dance
Ruben Pachas created a fun and informative workshop for my university class on "Latina/os in the U.S." Although my students were initially quite hesitant to dance, Ruben quickly put everyone at ease, and within minutes, twenty college students were stomping, dancing, and rushing around the room in different formations. By the end of class, everyone was laughing, breathing hard, and enjoying the moment. My students reported to me later that they were nervous but ended up having more fun than expected. They even felt that the dances helped to create a new sense of community and cooperation in the classroom. Furthermore, Ruben does an excellent job bringing in the importance of indigenous knowledge and culture, which was very relevant for our course. Students felt that they had a better understanding of indigeneity through this participatory workshop.
Emily M. Navarro, PhD (she/her/ella)
Assistant Professor of Sociology
Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice
Elmhurst University, 190 Prospect Ave., Elmhurst, IL 60126
(Ancestral Homeland of the Council of Three Fires--the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi)