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A Peruvian (non)Thanksgiving Epiphany
It’s Friday, November 26, the day after Thanksgiving in the United States but which, in Peru, is just November 26. We don’t celebrate Turkey Day or Black Friday in this Andean nation of 30 million people. No pilgrims landed here. Just conquistadors. The locals were eating cuy, not turkey, when Pizarro invaded the place and smashed the Inca Empire. The conquistadors weren’t big on saying Thanks. They just grabbed. I was feeling unexpectedly sad yesterday morning. It was my third Non-Thanksgiving Day in Peru, and you think I would have gotten over it, but I hadn’t. What made my disappointment a surprise is that I’ve never been big on the holiday. Back in the…
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Who’s Peruvian? Film “Soy Andina” documents two dancers’ search for identity
Who is Peruvian? Who is Andean? Can a Peruvian dancer who’s made a new life in New York City return after 15 years to her remote hometown in the Andes to reclaim her heritage? Can a young American of mixed Peruvian and Puerto Rican heritage find her “inner Andina” (as I like to call it) by studying folkloric dance techniques in towns throughout Peru? These questions and more are raised in Soy Andina (“I Am Andean”), a full-length documentary film in English and Spanish by American director Mitch Teplitsky. The movie follows two the journeys of two dancers, Nelida, from the Peruvian highlands, and Cynthia, from Queens, New York, as they live out their dreams of (re)connecting with their…
