ABSTRACT
This chapter explores continuity and change in Nicaraguan dance rituals from the ¬colonial period to the present. It focuses on the way in which ritual movement, as a visual mode of communication, operates as a site for knowledge transmission for indigenous cultures in the region. Nicaraguan dance as medicine takes on new significance following European encounter as native communities faced the social dis-ease produced by settler colonialism throughout the Americas. Moreover, post conquest, the preservation of native dance rituals represent important sites of power and knowledge for indigenous peoples who continue to assert their agency and transmit ancestral knowledge. We see this in the continuity and change of the elements of indigenous dance rituals that appear in The Güegüense, which has been consistently performed in Nicaragua since the colonial period. The Güegüense is a comedy-ballet that uses irony, wordplay, satire, and physical comedy to comment on colonial power relations.
