From "Baile y Tierra" to Cachimbo. Memory and Imaginaries of a Heritage Dance from Northern Chile

Abstract

The cachimbo is the musical expression that currently identifies the foothill communities of the Tarapacá region located in northern Chile. It comes from the “baile y tierra” that was danced when the region was under Peruvian administration. With the arrival of the brass band during the Chilean administration, it changed its name to cachimbo and suffered a series of exogenous transformations that gave it other frames of reference, which were imposed on society through official State agencies. During the 21st century, a revival began that appealed to the collective memory in relation to baile y tierra to restore dance. This social movement generated a bridge that allowed its practitioners to overcome the dramatic past, explain the cachimbo in the present and rethink it towards the future, turning the current cachimbo into a tool that links the Tarapacan communities their ancestral territory.