The Listen & Be Heard Hour for Readers & Writers
s3e8 March 20, 2025
Victoria Santa Cruz
Poet, Choreographer, Costume Designer
In 1922 Victoria Santa Cruz was born in Lima as the eighth of ten children in a family of black artists, musicians, and intellectuals. Santa Cruz’s mother taught young Victoria marinera and other criollo dances. Her father, raised during his adolescence in the United States, shared his knowledge of European classical music and the works of Shakespeare. In 1958, together with her younger brother Nicomedes, she cofounded the first black theater company in Peru, Cumanana, which she codirected until 1961. The three-act musical play Malató (1961)—which she wrote, choreographed, and staged—revealed “the historically prevalent intimate relations between slave and master that were omitted from the official history of Peruvian haciendas and biological mestizaje.”# It also sought to reconstruct nearly forgotten black religious practices. During her time with Cumanana, Santa Cruz began to develop her pedagogical method of self-discovery and recuperation of culture based on internal rhythm and what she called ancestral memory.# Her lifelong aim was to awaken black consciousness and pride in Peru.
Read the full text at: https://hammer.ucla.edu/radical-women/artists/victoria-santa-cruz
