On the trail of pre-Hispanic dance

Abstract

In the immediate period to the arrival of the Spaniards, the societies of the Indians underwent diverse modifications in their lifestyle. One of them was the imposition of the Catholic religión, which forced them to put aside all their beliefs, as well as rituals that they carried out to focus their ideology towards a single divine entity; which leads us to reflect on the role that the Concheros Dance has had within society and how it has transcended over time.

From an ethnohistorical perspective, the present work seeks to identify in a preliminary way through archaeological evidence, analysis of historical sources and ethnography, in which mention is made of the "use" of dances during the time of the Conquest or in previous stages; in order to understand under what contexts the ancient groups organized dances, to know if from that moment this type of manifestation had a religious character, and to identify what the outfits they used to carry out the choreographies were like; allowing to generate analogies between these historical evidences and contemporary indigenous traditional dances, specifically the Concheros Dancing Groups, to understand the transformations they have undergone, record the process of cultural survival of this dance phenomenon and thus grant both to the dance society, as to those of us who are spectators, a new vision that allows us to appreciate the Concheros Dance and its importance, whit the objetive to comprendre that this phenomenon goes beyond being a showy and entertaining form of a ritual.

Subsequently, it is intended to continue the search that complements part of the thesis investigation entitled "Ethnoarchaeological Study of the Concheros Dance: Towards a definition through their material culture."