Animating Spectacular Citizenship: Music, Radio Broadcasts, and Folklore Competitions in Andean Peru

• In Event: Popular Music

Abstract

This paper proceeds from the assumption that folkloric music matters to processes of defining and contesting, ascribing and claiming identities. These negotiations can be considered spectacles of citizenship, by which I mean attention-getting claims to visibility and official recognition for otherwise marginalized or ignored populations. The competition model for folklore performances prevalent in the Andes imposes a tightly regulated script for how this citizenship is to be enacted. Dance competitions have garnered particular attention by audiences and scholars alike. These dances are frequently associated with specific social categories such as indigenous and mestizo, making for fruitful discussion about the ways dancers perform identity in and out of character. In this paper, I propose an alternate account by focusing on the role of the musicians accompanying the dancers in a subset of competitions that are sponsored and broadcast by local radio stations. Whereas the dancers provide visually striking performances of identity, the contributions of musicians at first seem peripheral. They are positioned on the sidelines, rarely heeded by audiences, and figure minimally in the official evaluative criteria. Nevertheless, their contributions are essential to the competition and foregrounded by the radio transmission's isolation of sound. I propose considering these musicians' involvement in broadcast competitions not as performing identities, but instead as animating, in the sense of enlivening or putting into motion, both the dancers and the radio audience. Their music animates people to dance and thereby makes possible collectives that exceed the policed citizenship of the competition.

Author

• Violet Cavicchi