Venezuela, as country pluricultural, possesses an immense flow of dances and interesting

dances in its content and rich in variability. These dances and dances, representatives of

each cultural and social area, are part of a great complex of relationships that they are

constantly manifested between the men and groups in the society; of there that jointly with

the language, they define the social and cultural entity clearly to which you/they belong. In

such a sense, we verify a first group of indigenous dances that, for their characteristics, they

are distinguished in the mosaic cultural Venezuelan for their enraizamiento to their

millennial origin, enriched with becoming of the time through an own dynamics in constant

interculturación; they point out an evolutionary process, seemingly of exogenous character,

since the nucleus of this manifestations is characterized by a slow rhythm of modification

with relationship to the movement patterns and the trajectory in its choreographic ways

that, although they seem similar, they have subtle variations. The indicators of similarity in

the nucleus around which you/they are carried out these manifestations lean on in the

sacred or profane reason, causal of the mobilization toward this activity. The participation

can be massive on the part of the community. On the other hand the movement patterns are

susceptible of variability for the constant interrelation of traditional elements with those of

recent acquisition, as consequence of the cultural dynamics that the towns develop. From

the point of view of the composition, they possess an unit among songs, instruments and

movements, with binary rhythms in the musical outline, you form choreographic circular or

lineal and slight differences in the used basic step; everything it, for oneself end: the social,

economic or religious interest, historically established values in this society. The second

group of dances and dances afrovenezolanos will arise soon after the contact with the

European culture whose central nucleus comes, generally, of interrelated elements of

Christian character with elements characteristic of the African continent. This second group

offers a rich musical literary content; its nucleus is correlated with the calendar calendar in

such a way that each festivity has, in its majority, a pattern or clearly identified saint around

which will develop a series of activities that you/they conclude the day traditionally fixed

for the celebration. The indexes of likeness can be configured on some such elements as:

cooperative, brotherhoods, societies; social activity in the exchange for the preparations

that precede to the celebration; passive or active relationship with the representatives of the

Church; and preparations of foods and special drinks for the occasion. Among the

movement patterns she/he is a great diversity, as much in the style as in the expression

form, result of the creative wealth and spontaneity in the corporal language, attributed

essentially to the easiness of improvising as much in the song as in the movement. The

choreographic forms can be procesionales, where the population participates massively, or

singular, where she originates the interrelation spontaneous man-woman and freely. So

much the songs, rich in rhythmic and melodic content, as the percussion instruments, they

are the essential factors for the happiness and characteristic amusement of this

manifestation type. A third group of dances and dances will associate, as the previous one,

to European and American elements or of the 3 basic cultures that conform the system

sociocultural Venezuelan. This group possesses a nucleus diversified according to the

acquired influences through the time of the 3 cultural systems, in which one of them can or

to not have bigger traditional weight, as well as she/he can offer a symbiosis of

differentiated elements that they make them only and original. These they are distinguished

for an acceleration in the change in ways and ways, in the presentation of their essential

elements, for the constant enrichment in the variety of styles, for their geographical

mobility and for a sample of musical instruments of extensive diversity. The literature, the

music, the songs and the movements differ substantially among each manifestation. The

same thing doesn't happen especially to the nucleus that unifies them, in the dates fixed or

movable calendáricas, which can originate employer parties or calendars not what implies

the presentation, in all the occasions, of the dances or the traditional dances of the region.

Their organization settles down in the modifications of its movement patterns, which

spread to the variation for multiple exogenous factors that impact in the behavior grupal or

singular. On the other hand the nucleus, although it can also vary, it makes it to a much

slower rhythm. The characteristics that identify this manifestation type rest fundamentally

in the system party, the one that is subdivided in the subsystems: religious ceremony, crafts,

social, economic relationships, I exchange, typical foods, dance or dances, artificial fires,

etc. The musical and choreographic outlines offer a rich variety for their study, as much the

musical rhythms as the basic steps of each one of them spread to be quite similar in the unit

of the in agreement movement with the musical time, not so much their variants which rest

in the accent or the emphasis that it is given to certain step personalized by each performer.

The fourth group understands the popular dances or you form non traditional dancísticas

that settle down in the society for indefinite time and they spread to disappear in the

measure in that another style displaces them slowly; it is identified, generally, in urban

areas by means of one of its fundamental characteristics, like it is the derived social

cohesion when she/he is carried out the activity. One could say that the nucleus stays in the

non formal learning during the moment in that it is in full popularity. With relationship to

their movement patterns, it lacks choreographic outline, it possesses a basic step preset with

slight variants; the dances are made in even or individually and the music in its majority is

of strange origin. The social media influences powerfully in the stimulus toward the

dependence of this musical style and danzario. And lastly, a fifth group that is limited to

execute the dances of academic type exists or learned by established outlines with a specific

language to each style. The activity is developed by means of a system of formal learning.

Their main nucleus is centered in the code of movements invented to stylize the body like a

creation instrument. It is the dance taken to the scene as a result of a process in which the

acquisition intervenes of technical, to express intellectual, aesthetic forms and of poetic

recreation. You can point out a secondary nucleus that settles down once overcome the first

period of systematic learning; this will be the creation object that will derive in a magic and

theatrical show. Their movement pattern is rich and complex since it involves the thought

and the imagination toward the search in new interpretive ways that you/they force to solve

the problem from the selection of appropriate exercises to the interests of each group. The

creative art is characterized to be minority, that is to say, very few people arrive to the last

learning stage and much less to be expressed artistically in this environment. The 5 groups

analyzed previously are activities that are given simultaneously in the context social and

cultural Venezuelan. Their learning methods differ broadly so much in their content as in

the respective movement patterns that distinguish them. For their origins and forms, they

are a constant in the time and in the space, what influences vastly in the quantity of

participant people. Venezuela like country pluricultural have the privilege of possessing a

beautiful patrimony, bequeathed by their history and acquired with approval for all those

that feel in diverse ways the call of the aesthetic feeling that through the dances and the

dances can enjoy.

Dance and indigenous dances

The current indigenous societies possess a great variety of manifestations where the dance

is practiced as a factor socializante. Among the different elements that compose the

aesthetic universe of these cultures, it is in a first plane the literature and the poetry that

jointly with the music they will form a binomial of which derives the dance. The contents

of the literary texts are vast and diverse among those that highlight the relatives to myths,

free narrations, humorous songs, testimonies and historical descriptions, those that are

transmitted to the community by means of the song or the word. In such a way that the

womb that propitiates a manifestation originates for multiple reasons; its relationship with

the life is of capital importance, so much in the aspect magic-religious as in the secular, as

well as its integrative function and participativa in each estamento vivencial of the

community. The birth, the puberty, the marriage and the death, they are fundamental factors

to organize a manifestation, also the work and the amusement, which motivate the dance in

their list of primacy. These customs of the indigenous towns were forged along millennia

and they ended up being differentiated cultures, adapted to ecological systems inside which

created their own ways of economic, social, cultural production, aesthetics and artistic. In

the case of the wayúu that you/they inhabit the Peasant's region (Zulia), they were farmers

at one time, when it existed in the area bigger precipitation of rains, combining these

activities with shepherding works. In that first time it is where the origin of the yonna,

dance is located that one of the most important aesthetic and utilitarian manifestations in

the culture wayúu expresses. This celebration was carried out when the gathering of the

crops concluded, during a night of full moon as symbol of abundance and fertility; the

touch of the kaashi (drum) it was transmitted until the Peasant's more distant corner, to

achieve the massive concentration of the community and to narrow even more the bond of

the characteristic family plans that continues defining the system of relationship of the

ethnos wayúu. The yonna, dance of agrarian origin, is at the present time one of the most

important popular expressions that is carried out for diverse reasons, among which it is

necessary to highlight: when one makes the presentation of the majayut (young peasant

beginner), after it leaves the paut (orientation place and teaching of the woman wayúu, in

the initiation stage for their future paper in the society). To celebrate the visit of friends and

relatives of other dispersed communities, or also when the seyuu (protective spirit) she/he

makes the indications to a member of the community through the dream, so that she/he

carries out a yonna in their honor. During the yonna songs are not intoned, except for the

exclamations or the dancer's screams before beginning the movement, fair when the man

turns and with a defiant voice he exclaims toward the woman wo-sei!, so that she moves

with a turn on itself and begin the dance. The trajectory is to circulate and for even

interdependent, the dancer opening its blanket pursues the man with quick step and

intertwined with the intention of knocking down it, being observed a slight competition of

agility and dexterity between both. Warao. In Yruara-Akojo, like in other villages where

members of the ethnos warao inhabit, near the pipe Winikina, toward the outlet of the river

Orinoco, in the state Delta Amacuro, takes place the ritual of the najanamu. This ceremony

is requested by the wisidatú (chamán) when she/he receives in dreams the command of

Kanobo (deity warao). The celebration understands a sacred part (she/he dances of the

jatabu), a festival one (she/he dances of the jabisanuka) and a lúbrica (naji-saji game and

other). Among the preparations that are made with a lot of advance to the celebration date,

she/he is the search of the tuétano of the palm moriche of which obtain flour after a

laborious process, for the making of the yuruma cakes. Enough hunt, fishes and ocumo to

assure the maintenance of the companies for several days. Leaves of tobacco in branch for

the production of the cigarettes güina, fundamental element in the moments to share

socially. Chinchorros and spaces to locate to the invited families, as well as the production

of the jojonoko or dance hint, which you/they upholster with barks of manaca trunk. In this

place generally located in the later part of the homestead, every afternoon they will be

developed along one week, the different acts that compose the festivity. The beliefs warao

and their rituals vary according to the geographical point of the delta where they are and

according to the acculturation degree to that you/they are subjected. The objective of the

celebration of the najanamu, is to appease the spirit applicant's desires to take a bath in the

white yuruma flour, gathered and kept zealously in the kauya ajanoko or small enclosure

specially manufactured for that effect. Of not being completed their desires one would run

the risk of receiving many wrongs in the community, especially illnesses in the children,

famines or poverty; it is for it that these rituals are made at least once a year. To the men

selected by the wisidato, it corresponds them to choose the sticks of the jatabus to place

them in the superior part the splints wooden called daunona that represent the feminine and

masculine gender of the spirit ofrendado. In the splints some lines are traced in equis form

and in the spaces they place thick points by way of decoration. The clever jatabus with their

respective daunona is placed in the center of dance couple's hint to give beginning to the

ritual. Later, with great reverence, they bring the sacred objects wrapped in a cloth; the

jebu-mataro or great maraca, enormous idiófono adorned with feathers and multicolored

tapes, only used by the chamán; the moroki or maraca of second order of smaller size, less

trim than the previous one and the one that is given to the invited chamanes or important

characters of the society warao; the maraquita jabi of average size and without any

decoration, it is used by the rest of the masculine companies. Kariña. The table of Guanipa

in the state Anzoátegui, is the region where they are the communities of Tascabaña, Under

Deep, The Potocas, Cachama, among others. There the kariñas lives, descending historical

of the famous caribeses who were seated originally in the riversides of the rivers Pao for the

columnists' news, Orinoco, Caura, Caroní and Guarapiche, in Venezuela. In those

populations of the table of Guanipa, the maremare, manifestation is danced that formerly

was a sacred ritual from the cult to the jaguar and the moon whose meaning magic-religious

became a secular festivity. At the moment maremare is danced in marriage celebrations,

anniversaries, or when a relative arrives after a long trip. As for the song, it is testimonial

and it can be interpreted by participants of both sexes that have veteranía in the

improvisation. Those of historical references are among the most popular topics; those that

mention to old or contemporary problems of the community; you fear loving and

humorous. The maremare is danced in even or small lines of 3 or more people who move

with short steps, forming forward and back, while they describe a circle simultaneously.

The main musical instruments are those of indigenous origin as the maracas veréekushi

(reeds) which drive the melody and they go accompanied by the four Creole and the

tamborito. The akaatompo, another important manifestation of the culture kariña, is heiress

of the old ritual agrarian caribe, which is manifested at the moment with many variants as a

result of the deep acculturation that has suffered this powerful culture through the years.

During the first 3 days of the month of November, the kariñas celebrates the religious

festivity of the akaatompo in honor to their deceaseds. Two months before the preparations

begin with which they will give the children the first day and to the adults the second and

third day. Very early in the morning the activity begins when those smaller than the

community visit the houses of the mothers that have lost its children; to these children they

are served food and drink and they are lit with a lit candle while they consume the snack.

The 2 and 3 of November are the days in that the adults are assisted when arriving at the

houses where some of their members has died. There the woman begins the song from the

akaatompo to the remembered person's name, accompanied by the dressing rooms of four,

maracas and reeds. These visits are rewarded with food, fermented drink and liquor. The

akaatompo singers take turns (man or woman) although the widespread habit is the

feminine voice who improvises about the remembered deceased's life, until when for

fatigue, another person takes her shift. This repeats uninterruptedly until very entrance the

dawn. Their movement is slow as the music, because a sacred ritual is considered, she/he is

organized in form of people's of both sexes lines, some in front of other who they take for

the waist to carry out a trajectory of advances and setbacks forward with 4 steps and 4 stop

behind, before turning to the right or the left. Of the lines wings of 3 or more people come

off who always repeat the same variants and trajectories. Jiwi (guahíbos). This group is

located to both sides of the river Orinoco between Colombia and Venezuela toward the

south of the state Amazons, they also extend toward a part of the territory of the state it

Hurries, but the community of Flagstone of Márano, in the municipality Atabapo in the

state Amazons is of where they come the ritual dances and laymen that next are described,

among which the better known ones are the jirijirewa (brincadito), the piece, the jiwa,

guana and the wajita. These are practiced during the party of the yarake, name of a drink

that you/they prepared formerly with milled yucca and then cooked by long hours. The

women were in charge of of these tools, while the men left in search of a good prey to eat

and to drink during the celebration. This habit was disappearing little by little, more than

everything for the influence of the missionaries, especially the evangelical ones for who

these amusements were connected with the demon. At the moment the jiwis cultivates the

cane of sugar in small quantities, of those that obtain after a long process the strong

guarapo with which they celebrate their meetings. The juice of the cane boils it in big pots,

it stops later to deposit it in a wooden curiara which you/they cover later on with banana

leaves. During several days, the chamán prays next to the drink, until when it considers

that it is sufficiently strong, she/he lists to drink. Then it is invited the relatives of other

communities and neighboring populations. The assistants take advantage of the opportunity

of the encounter to carry out exchanges or economic and social commitments. Before

giving beginning to the meeting the namo it is executed (fox), sacred flute that is used to

evict to the spirits of the place where she/he will be carried out the encounter. Once

finished the session of spiritual clearance, beginning is given to the party. The wajita whose

meaning is «connected one to other» it is a sung story and danced; the soloist with a

handful of men meets in the square the history that will count during the dance to discuss;

once agreed the topic the song begins with the soloist's sentences that then the choir

repeats. All are linked elbow to elbow and they begin a moderate swinging of the body as

they accentuate the rhythm with the right foot hitting the floor forward. The wheel headed

by the singer-guide who is also the one that plays the maraca, never closes in order to

having more flexibility in the movements and I eat opening sign and invitation to

participate. When the women want it they enter to the dance; for they slip it among the men

connecting them for the waist; these in turn place the arm on the shoulders of them without

losing the rhythmic blow of the dance. They count the jiwis that formerly prepared the

mápato, species of elaborated cloth of the roots of the tree of the same name. The women

made their robes called marima while the men used the guayuco. The jirijirewa or

brincadito consist on to hold on to in even and to jump alternately in anyone from the feet

to the rhythm of the kayawua (maraca that took figured mythical figures and feathers of

colors in their interior). Each man took it in his right hand to accentuate the rhythm, while it

rotates of a side to other carrying out turns on his own axis, at the same time that he goes

advancing in elliptic form. The jiwa, another dance that they carry out with reed, it is called

this way because each man plays an instrument of 5 tubes tied with candlewick and another

of more size that is managed loose. In this dance the instruments are played alternately,

male of serious sound and females of sharper sound, which are supplemented in the touch

of the melody. Each musician takes a dance partner with who carries out long steps in kind

of a slow career advancing and going back in zigzag form. The jujú is the acquaintance

piece dance; I orchestrate musical that it is manufactured with the bone of the skull of the

deer and when being blown by the small occipital hole the rhythm that accompanies the

dance takes place. Here the groups are subdivided and they distribute in small groups being

placed next to the dressing rooms that possess the instrument. Once placed some in front of

other, advance and they go back being and going away with short steps, as long as the

instruments go sounding to the unison. The wana or pylon dance, are the only one that uses

2 lines of participants who move to the compass of the gunábato, name that you/they assign

to the pylons or manufactured long and thin drums of the trunk of the tree guana. The

male's dressing room (heavier) and that of the female (lighter) they head the lines of the

dancers to hit the drums alternately against the floor. The participants of each line

accentuate the rhythm with the right foot while they place their hand on the precedent

partner's shoulder. Piaroa (wótuja). The hábitat of bigger density of the piaroas is along the

rivers Parguaza, Cuao, Gave birth to, Cataniapo and Sipapo, flowing of the Orinoco in the

state Amazons. The piaroas considers that their origin and descendant comes from the

family of the tapires (or dantas), since Wajari, its cultural hero and spirit of the danta,

transmitted them to him this way. For it this animal is sacred to such a point that nobody

dares to look, to play and much less to kill. The quantity of corn that you sows a year in a

traditional establishment varies of agreement with the decisions that are adopted about the

ceremonial activity of the year in course. For the great sari-warime festival (the first word

designates to the ceremonial drink, the second to the masked dancers), the «territorial

ruwa» (master of ceremonies) she/he should prepare parcels of much more corn since for

the ceremonial drinks as much the corn as the batata it is used in high proportion with

relationship to the yucca. The go-sare (fermented guarapo of batata and yucca) and the

ñami-sari (fermented guarapo of corn and batata) it is prepared by the women and stored in

big canoes it stops after having fermented, to drink it profusely. Equal happens to the

yukuta (mañoco and it dilutes) and a great variety of prepared juices with the help of

cultivated fruits or wild, which waste away in big quantities. When concluding the rainy

station the hunt it is intensified, in order to accumulating many preys, which are smoked

and they keep for the moment to consume them in the party. Although the sari-warime is a

great ritual of fertility, it is also a public demonstration of the power that it possesses the

territorial ruwa who represents Wajari during the ceremony, the creative deity of the men

wótuja, of the animals and of the world. Most of the myths piaroas narrates the fight well

among the and the wrong; in this case it is the fight of power among Kuemoi (anaconda)

that means cannibalism and the danger and Wajari (danta) who represents the benevolent

being. The society piaroa arises as product of the mythical marriage between the family of

Kuemoi and Wajari; and of the interaction between the danta and the anaconda. She/he

relates the myth that at the end of that time Wajari organized the first sari-warime, to which

all the mythical beings were invited. At the end of the meeting, he granted to the animals

their current form. Wajari was the first one in having the hallucinogenic vision of the ritual,

with its masked dancers and the sacred musical instruments that you/they play every

morning and the nights and that no woman can see. This first ceremonial that Wajari

organized was in its sister's honor Céjeru, goddess of the fecundity. At the moment the

masks warime, placed 5 men take them distributed in 3 types: the masks imé or of the

váquiro white cheek and of the small váquiro of necklace, adorned with feathers of macaws

and of toucan; the mask jicú or of the white monkey; and the mask reyo or giant spirit of

the forest. The base of the masks is made with an open thick fabric and covered with a clay

layer. The dancers are presented with the totally covered head by the masks, which take on

the base a curtain of threads of vegetable fiber that arrives until the height of the chest of

the dancers. Two skirts of leaves of palms cover their bodies: the first one from the neck up

to the height of the thigh and the second from the waist until the feet. All take in the hand

the raniñú or maraca knitted with vegetable fibers that it is good them to accompany the

movements with which they emphasize the songs, while they dance in the great ceremony.

Walekena. In the context of the ritual of passage kasijmakasi, carried out by the walekena

of the town Wayánapi (White Guzmán) to the south of the river Black-Guainía, in the state

Amazons, a group of songs and dances are executed that they serve as outline kinético and I

eat vehicle for the development of the action ritualística. This cycle of movements is

observed from the beginning of the event, where the active and passive participation of the

companies is known; also during the same one, in order to maintaining the attention of the

audience toward each one of the fundamental acts of the ceremonial, and when concluding,

as conclusion and farewell of the I celebrate sacred, mythical and secular. The group of

songs and dances composed by the maliyé, manukaliyamo, wayalu, wayanúa and

yuwirililu, are carried out in different times and during the period determined by the

madzalu or «cabezante» who is the coordinator of the preparations of the party. The maliyé

dances, manukaliyamo and wayalu, they could be considered a lúdicro-sacred code, since

their object is concretizar and to accompany the fundamental acts of the ritual. As long as

the yuwirililu and the wayanúa share a lúdicro-secular or profane code, since the wayanúa

is danced for the initiate ones after having fulfilled the regulation fast and with the tests to

which were previously subjected; also for the companies without the participation of the

initiate youths; and like farewell dance when the ceremonial has concluded.

Dance and dances afrovenezolanos

In the land of the dance spaces or stages can be pointed out in the process intercultural that

has been come manifesting in the groups afrovenezolanos. The arrival of African to

Venezuela, specifically in the area of the coast, during the years of the Colony; later on of

Antillean, in their majority of Trinidad, attracted by the peak of the exploitation of gold in

THE Callao (Edo. Bolivar); and more recently, the continuous interculturación among

Curazao, Bonaire and other small near islands to the coast of Falcon, they have left cultural

prints that are expressed clearly through folkloric and popular manifestations identified in

those regions. The first ones, arrived with the Spaniards from the XVI century, laid the

foundation knowledge of their own culture with the European; by means of a symbiosis

between the Christian faith and the African religions. The countless parties that take place

year after year in the states Zulia, Miranda, Yaracuy, Aragua, Carabobo and in the Federal

District, it is the answer to the dynamics that settles down among the exchange of cultural

values of both entities. The homage to diverse saints of the Christianity, the ways and styles

of African origin, reflected in the songs, musical instruments, patterns of movements

centered in the pelvis, as well as the organization of brotherhoods and associations, they are

some of the elements that distinguish these groups. The seconds they bring with their

Antillean tradition the mixture of the autochthonous language with English, different

musical instruments and in general, differentiated customs of the previous ones; the reason

of its dances differs, since these, fundamentally, are carried out for carnival and lately, to

celebrate the Carmen's Virgin, July 16. The third are identified in a same way by the use of

percussion instruments, for the movement centered in the pelvis; their activity, highly

popular and secular, it can take place in any time of the year. The 3 groups before

mentioned they arrive to the country for different roads and at one time and distant space to

each other; nevertheless, the dynamics of their customs and the force of their culture

constantly enrich the patrimony artistic Venezuelan.

The expressions more representative afrovenezolanas are: San Juan's drums that occupy the

whole coastal area of the country almost especially the states Sucre, Miranda, Aragua,

Carabobo and Yaracuy; and San Benito's chimbángueles, located in the state Zulia. Other

manifestations also of African root, but of more recent origin (final of the XIX century)

they are spread in the rest of the country, I eat the calipso for example, coming from the

Antilles, very diffused in Güiria (Edo. Sucre) and The Callao (Edo. Bolivar). In the time of

the Colony she/he originated the devotion to San Benito of Palermo, first black sainted who

she/he was born in San Fratello and she/he died in Palermo, Italy in 1589. This saint's area

devocional doesn't only embrace the state Zulia, but also part of the states Falcon, Merida,

Trujillo, Barinas and Portuguese. In the state Zulia the festivity is expressed through the

chimbángueles, voice of origin angolesa coming from Imbangala. According to Juan D.