“Seeking a New Path”

This dissertation investigates the origins and development of a novel communal art form called pasacalle that is associated with the district of Villa El Salvador on the outskirts of Peru's coastal capital city, Lima. The main performers of pasacalle in Villa El Salvador (VES) are youth of rural Andean descent. Most are second generation Limeños whose parents immigrated to the city from the Andean highlands. They belong to a community that has always existed on the lower rungs of Limeño society in terms of socioeconomic status and political agency. The genre of pasacalle, driven by a novel Afro-Brazilian-derived drum music, batucada, has become central to their expressive culture. Pasacalle drumming is not just a form of performance art and entertainment, but also a vehicle for solidifying communal bonds, resisting hegemony and marginalization, asserting rights and power, fighting racism, and mediating the complex sociocultural admixture of localized identity, pride in Andean heritage, aspirations for upward mobility within Limeño society, and expressions of a particular brand of cosmopolitan internationalism that defines contemporary life in Villa El Salvador. It is to the exploration of such issues that this dissertation is addressed.