ABSTRACT
For most of the second part of the 20th century, Afroperuvian music making has been largely centred on the activities of professional popular musicians. In previous centuries musical practices associated with people of African descent in Peru were largely associated with community-based musical events whose primary intent was to strengthen familial and social bonds within those communities. The last five decades, however, have placed a more marked emphasis on the professional stage, nightclub performances and recorded albums that are widely consumed by largely non-Afroperuvian audiences, both within Peru and more recently in the American and European world music markets. While this shift in performance context helped greatly in the dissemination, recognition and acceptance of Afroperuvian music, some performers have come to question the degree to which the Afroperuvian professional music circuit has become a golden cage that, over time, has disconnected professional musicians from the communities to which they belong. This article will focus on the recent attempts by one particular group of Afroperuvian performers, the members of Grupo Teatro del Milenio (Theatre of the Millennium Group), to devise new performative strategies that can help both performers and their audiences to develop a more critical engagement with their own identities as Afroperuvians. The overall end of such a discussion is not to validate the strategies advocated by this particular group as being more effective than others in addressing some of the growing concerns in the Afroperuvian musical community. Rather, I am interested in how Milenio’s unique blend of Afroperuvian popular music, modern dance, social activism and European experimental theatre techniques can help further our understanding of the cosmopolitan aspects of Afroperuvian identity among professional musicians in Lima.
