cueca

The tradition & historical record

Cueca (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈkweka]) is a family of musical styles and associated dances in which 'the dancers, who carry a handkerchief in their right hand, trace circular figures, with turns and half-turns, interrupted by various flourishes.' It dates back to the late 18th century, and its origin is disputed; there are various theories or schools of thought regarding its provenance and evolution. It is danced "under more or less different names", from Colombia to Argentina, Chile, and Bolivia, and it has different varieties, both in rhythm and choreography, depending on the regions and the periods; "the only thing that differentiates them is the local color they acquire in different places, as well as the number of measures, which varies from one to another." The Chilean government officially declared the cueca the "national dance of Chile" through Decree No. 23 of November 6, 1979, issued by the Ministry of the General Secretariat of Government, and designated September 17 as the "National Cueca Day" through Decree No. 54 of October 28, 1989, issued by the same ministry. Likewise, the Bolivian government declared the Bolivian cueca an intangible cultural heritage of the country on November 30, 2015, and established the first Sunday of October as the "Day of the Bolivian Cueca".

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Cueca”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence.

cueca is musical genre and folkloric dance of South America, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ¹

The source record links this tradition to 13 external registers, which can be verified through the citation. ¹