“Me gritaron negra”: Reflecting On the Cultural Work of Victoria Santa Cruz
Collage of Victoria Santa Cruz by Doriana Diaz.
By Karla Méndez
Writer Karla Méndez examines the contributions of choreographer, composer, and activist Victoria Santa Cruz to Peruvian, Black, and Latin American art and culture.
Casta Systems
In Latin America, the construction of race is varied and has, throughout history, undergone significant changes. During the colonial period, racial identities were ruled by an elaborate caste or casta system that determined what position in the social hierarchy citizens occupied. The system was one of the many ways that Spanish and Portuguese colonizers held onto their power and maintained superiority. The system remains unofficially in place despite the passage of time since the official end of colonization.
Afro-descendant and Indigenous people make up 40% of the population in Latin America, yet they are often placed at the margins of society, with the region embracing a White-European visual representation that does not accurately depict the ethnic and racial makeup. This has resulted in the erasure of Afro-Latina contributions to various Latin American cultures. Many activists, artists, musicians, and entertainers have sought to reinscribe these ignored histories. Among these cultural workers was choreographer, composer, and activist Victoria Santa Cruz.
Image of Victoria Santa Cruz. Photo Source: LatinoAmerica21.
Genealogy of Creativity
Born into an artistic family on October 27th, 1922, in Lima, Peru, Santa Cruz’s work sought to discover “ancestral memory” of African forms, recuperating a culture that had been lost to enslavement. She argued that she was attempting to rediscover Black culture and what she considered ancestral memory, the idea that memories are passed down. In the context of her work, the concept can be related to intergenerational trauma and the belief that suffering and anguish are inherited. Through ancestral memory, Santa Cruz intended to awaken Black consciousness in Peru.
Popularly believed to be the mother of Afro-Peruvian dance, Santa Cruz was first introduced to performance, the arts, and music by her parents. Her mother was a singer and traditional Peruvian dancer, while her father was a playwright who spent most of his early life in the United States. During this time, he became acquainted with Shakespeare and European classical music, like Wagner and Puccini, which he later introduced to Santa Cruz.
This transference of creative knowledge constituted her education during her early career. Inspired by these colloquial teachings, Santa Cruz and her younger brother Nicomedes founded Cumanana, the first Black-owned theater company, in 1958. She held the role of director until 1961, during which she produced plays, including one of her most notable, Malato, in 1961. Through this and her work, Santa Cruz sought to center the experience of Afro-Latinas and highlight the continued impact that histories of enslavement had and continue to inflict on Peru and the broader Latin American nations.
Despite not receiving an early formal education in theater, after founding Cumanana, and producing several plays, she began to attend the Université du Théâtre des Nations and École Supérieur des Études Chorégraphiques in Paris, where she studied theater and choreography. Santa Cruz attended this institution from 1961 to 1965, and while there, she studied with esteemed professors and creatives like Jean-Louis Barrault, Eugène Ionesco, and Maurice Béjart. Shortly after graduating, she visited Africa for the first time and staged her play La muñeca negra (The Black Doll), continuing her reclamation of cultural memories.
Image of Victoria Santa Cruz. Source: ANDINA/Vidal Tarqui.
Recovery of Black Memory and Culture
Following her time in Paris and Africa, she returned to Peru, where she founded and directed her second company, Teatro y Danzas Negras del Perú (Black Theatre and Dances of Peru), in 1966. The company was bestowed with the honor of performing at the Olympics in Mexico City in 1968. Taking place during a period in which many nations were grappling with protests aimed at gaining equality and equity for marginalized groups and communities, the 1968 Olympics became the most politically charged since the 1936 Berlin Games. Ten days before the games, 200 student protesters were killed and over a thousand injured when they were challenging the Mexican government’s use of funds for the games instead of social programs. It was also at these games that American track and field gold and bronze medalists, Tommie Smith and John Wesley Carlos stood barefoot with their heads bowed and raised a single gloved fist during the National Anthem as a tribute to their African American heritage and an objection and highlight of the living conditions of minority groups in the United States.
Through performances like the one at the Olympics, she, her groups, and her work re-introduced Afro-Peruvian dance forms like zamacueca, an ancient colonial dance that grew out from Spanish and Andean rhythms and originating in Peru, and landu, a style of Afro-Brazilian music and dance. Zamacueca isn’t widely practiced today, nor was it when Santa Cruz was actively producing and creating work, further illustrating her dedication to the aspects of Peruvian history that were seemingly “lost” or no longer deemed culturally relevant.
Victoria Santa Cruz performing Me gritaron Negra. Peru, 1978. Source: Biennale of Sydney.
Redefining Her Identity as an Afro-Latina
The construction of identity or identity formation is, at times, a complicated and painful process in which individuals develop a clear and unique view of themselves. For many people, this is difficult, but for Black individuals and people of color, it is complicated by their race, gender, and socioeconomic status. Society tends to dictate what and who you are or can become, making it difficult to establish a sense of self. In the 1960s and 1970s, Black activists in the United States, like Santa Cruz in Peru and Paris, redefined and recreated what it meant to be Black. Black with a capital “B” is about self-naming, self-defining, and self-determining, which can be seen in the work of Santa Cruz. It is, at times, biographical, exhibiting the arduous process she has endured to form an identity that isn’t controlled or concerned with outdated stereotypes and instead honors a rich heritage inherited and a self of sense not founded in shame.
In 1978, Santa Cruz staged what would become one of her most beloved and well-known pieces of work, the rhythmic poem Me gritaron negra (They Yelled at Me: Black!). The poem, which was initially performed in Spanish, was a way for Santa Cruz to work through her existence as an Afro-Latina. To not only identify as a Black Latin American woman but to visually be identified as such meant that in her youth in Peru, she experienced racism. Due to her race, she was asked not to play with other children, making her incredibly cognizant of her racial identity in the Americas, a geographical region thoroughly associated with and historically committed to structures of racism.
In a 2007 interview, Santa Cruz described how as a little girl, she had been playing with a group of friends when a new girl with blond hair joined them and stated that if Santa Cruz remained, she would leave. Her friends promptly told Santa Cruz to leave, which to her, exemplified who held power and who had the right to wield that power. In her performance, she is joined by others, the group of voices reflecting not only the countless Black individuals who have endured similar racist experiences but also the support that can be found within our communities. By accompanying Santa Cruz as she recited the poem, those in the group were also reclaiming their Blackness, with the words empowering them and nourishing their pride.
Much has been written about the language used in the poem, specifically Santa Cruz’s repeated use of the word ‘Negra!’ (Black!). She took what had been used as an insult and turned it into a word bursting with pride, echoed by the chorus of people. She recalls how walking through the streets of Peru as a little girl, passersby would shout “Negra” at her, resulting in her straightening her hair and wanting to lighten her skin. The constant disparaging comments about her Blackness caused her to feel shame towards herself, and it was through the poem that she dismantled the restraints that society had placed on her and other African-descended people.
Victoria Santa Cruz reading the newspaper El Comercio. April 28, 1961 (Photo: GEC Historical Archive). Source: Peru 21.
Cultural Celebration Through Academia
In 1982, Santa Cruz began a professional and creative relationship with the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama (CMU), which continued until 1999. She was first a visiting artist, teaching workshops, and in time, she became the first Black woman to hold the position of a tenured professor. Her style of teaching and mentorship made her a favorite among students, with one of her classes, The Discovery and Development of Internal Rhythm, drawing every MCU Drama student to register. Santa Cruz’s role in the university paved the way for future professors like Kaja Dunn, who, in 2023, became the first African-American woman to be awarded tenure from the School of Drama.
Santa Cruz’s time at CMU proved to be creatively fruitful as she continued to restore documented histories that have attempted to erase the experiences and existence of Afro-Latinas/os. She staged, produced, and created these projects at an institution historically predominantly White, resisting the limited teachings of higher educational institutes. She presented the musical play “An Abandoned Building in the Bronx/La Calle” and the dance revue “El Negro en el Peru.” She also provided choreography and composition for Elisabeth Orion’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
After retiring from CMU in 1999, she moved back to Peru, where she passed away on August 30th, 2014. She was honored by being laid in state at the Museo de la Nación in Lima, Peru, one of two major museums of Peruvian history. It houses thousands of original pieces corresponding to the different periods of Peruvian history. Possessing more than 12,500 pre-Hispanic pieces, the objects have been obtained through archaeological research and the recovery of illegally trafficked goods, echoing the recuperation of culture that Santa Cruz depicted in her work.
Victoria Santa Cruz. July 26, 1973. Photo by El Comercio. Public Domain.
Negra, Siempre
Santa Cruz’s contributions to Peruvian culture, history, and art continue to be felt and celebrated today. To commemorate her 100th birthday and honor her legacy, Peru’s Ministry of Culture launched the Victoria Santa Cruz Centennial in October 2021. The following year, the Fulbright Commission in Peru announced a Victoria Santa Cruz Fulbright Grant, meant to be awarded to an Afro-Peruvian community leader pursuing graduate studies in the United States. The grant, in particular, reproduces Santa Cruz’s dismantling and permeation of institutions of higher education that have time and time again tried to bar students from racially, culturally, ethnically, and socioeconomically diverse backgrounds.
Santa Cruz understood the importance of being able to see oneself in their culture and the value of identity. Through her work, she was not only able to disavow the way that Blackness was seen, but she redefined Blackness. She refused to accept the position that Peru and the broader American society continuously forced Black individuals into and, by writing and producing plays, allowed others to reject those roles. Her work and words continue to inspire pride that, like her poem, Me gritaron negra, refuses to be silent or concealed.
About the Author
Karla Méndez is an arts and culture writer whose work examines the histories of Black and Latin American women and their representations within visual art, literature, poetry, and performance. She is interested in how women put forth representations of themselves that are accurately representative of their expansiveness and how they use these avenues to engage with topics of identity, gender, race, and the female body. Ultimately, her work seeks to explore and reinstate forgotten and ignored histories as a site of care for ourselves and our communities.
She is the lead columnist of Black Feminist Histories and Social Movements, a column for the advocacy organization Black Women Radicals. She is a contributor for the Boston Art Review and Elephant Magazine and her work has appeared in the Brown Art Review and Ampersand: An American Studies Journal.