Victoria Santa Cruz

Victoria Santa Cruz (1922–2014) is one of the most influential figures in Afro-Peruvian cultural history. A choreographer, composer, and intellectual, Santa Cruz played a central role in the revival and revaluation of Afro-Peruvian culture in the twentieth century. At a time when Blackness was marginalized or reduced to stereotypes within Peruvian society, her work insisted on the dignity, complexity, and centrality of Afro-Peruvian identity.

Santa Cruz approached art not simply as performance, but as a form of knowledge. For her, the body was a site where history, memory, and identity. Through rhythm, movement, and voice, she developed a practice that sought to reconnect Afro-Peruvian people with ancestral forms of expression that had been suppressed or devalued. Her work emphasized the importance of rhythm as a fundamental element of being, something that is not only heard, but felt and embodied.

This perspective is powerfully articulated in her well-known poem "Me gritaron negra," in which she recounts an experience of racial discrimination and traces a journey from internalized shame to the affirmation of Black identity. The poem moves from the violence of being called “negra” as an insult to reclaiming the term as a source of pride and strength. In doing so, Santa Cruz transforms language, memory, and emotion into a collective statement about Black consciousness and resistance.

Santa Cruz’s legacy is fundamental for thinking about Afro-Peruvian women’s narratives. Her work demonstrates that identity is not only spoken but also performed, felt, and remembered through the body. By reclaiming rhythm, movement, and voice, she created a space where Afro-Peruvian women could articulate their presence beyond stereotypes and exclusion. In this sense, her practice is not only artistic—it is deeply political, offering a way to resist erasure and to imagine new forms of being and belonging.