"The embodiment of gozo (bliss). Aesthetic experience, emotion and ideological discourse in the Toba dances of the Argentine Chaco"

Silvia Citro & Adriana Cerletti.

40th World Conference of the International Council for Traditional Music. Durban, Sudáfrica, 1 – 8 Julio 2009.

Among the aboriginal peoples of the Argentine Chaco, the circular song-dances of the young were associated to sexual innuendo and mating pleasures. Since the religious conversion of the Toba to Pentecostal Evangelism in the '50s, these dances were gradually abandoned. Nevertheless, in the `90s, a circular choreography called Rueda began to be performed mostly by the youngsters in the aboriginal churches, and it became the main way to reach the gozo (bliss) state: a link to Holy Spirit associated to powerful sensations and emotions of "enjoyment" and "health". The hegemonic Evangelical discourse created a strong dichotomy between the secular (the "world" of sins) and the "spiritual" (the Evangelio), and this also led to the development of "new" spiritual dance genres, like the Rueda. Thus, these religious dances and those performed by the Toba ancestors or non-Evangelical people were considered in opposition and were even identified with different Spanish words (danza and baile). Despite the ideological power of this dichotomy in the native discourses, our hypothesis states that the ways of experiencing these dances are not so different. We apply a dialectical perspective that confronts the approaches to music and dance as both esthetic objects and performative processes. First, comparing the musical and choreographic features of the Rueda and the old circular dances, we show that they are organized by similar aesthetic structures. Second, analyzing the performance of the Rueda, we demonstrate that the discursive opposition between the sacred and the secular is partially transcended through the gozo experience, because for the Toba, music and dances embodied the human power to attract both the other sex and the powerful spiritual beings. Finally, we discuss how a similar aesthetic and emotional dance experience develops different social functions, cultural meanings and ethic connotations, according to each ritual context and its ideological disputes.