From "Baile y Tierra" to Cachimbo. Memory and Imaginaries of a Heritage Dance from Northern Chile

The cachimbo is the musical expression that currently identifies the foothill communities of the Tarapacá region located in northern Chile. It comes from the “baile y tierra” that was danced when the region was under Peruvian administration. With the arrival of the brass band during the Chilean administration, it changed its name to cachimbo and suffered a series of exogenous transformations that gave it other frames of reference, which were imposed on society through official State agencies. During the 21st century, a revival began that appealed to the collective memory in relation to baile y tierra to restore dance. This social movement generated a bridge that allowed its practitioners to overcome the dramatic past, explain the cachimbo in the present and rethink it towards the future, turning the current cachimbo into a tool that links the Tarapacan communities their ancestral territory.