The Mysterious Scissors Dancers of Peru

Performed in the axial and southern highlands of Peru, the Scissors Ball is a acceptable accident that tests the concrete and airy backbone of the participants.

Westerners usually attention “La Danza de las Tijeras” as a concrete analysis area two men accept to prove their ability and attrition to pain, but to the humans of the Andes, this ball is a angelic ritual. The dancers, alleged danzaq, accomplish difficult stunts and leaps, alleged atipanakuy, accompanied by the music of a violin, a harp and the complete of the scissors they anniversary authority in their hands. So abundant about not arena with scissors, right?

The agent of the danzaq and their Scissors Ball is buried in mystery, but some anthropologists accept they appeared in 1524, during the apostasy adjoin Spanish colonial rule. According to old Spanish chronicles, Huancas (pre-Hispanic deities) bedevilled the bodies of aboriginal adolescent men, acceptance them to accomplish an impossible-looking ball signaling the acknowledgment of the Old Gods to vanquish the Christian God of the Spanish. As we all know, that didn’t happen, but the attitude of the Scissors Ball was kept animate by the Andean people.

It’s about absurd to accept anyone can achieve this affectionate of acrobatic moves, while administration a brace of scissors fabricated out of two alone bedding of metal, 25 cm each, but the danzaq do abundant more. To appearance airy superiority, they go through a alternation of challenges that cover afraid aciculate altar through their bodies, bistro bottle or walking on fire. The Scissors Dance is sometimes performed continuously for hours, until one of the competitors proves his superiority.

The best Scissors Dances can be witnessed in Ayacucho, Apurimac, Arequipa, Huancavelica and Lima.