Victoria Santa Cruz: Poet & Artist
Image of Victoria Santa Cruz from Wikipedia
During Women’s History Month, we are celebrating the women that paved the way and the women making history now.
This week we honor, Victoria Santa Cruz, an iconic choreographer, poet, professor, and artist. Born in 1922 in Lima, Peru, Victoria was eighth of ten children raised to a family of artists. She studied in Paris at the Université du Théâtre des Nations and École Supérieur des Études Chorégraphiques and became a popular costume designer, traveling to Africa for the first time, and staged her first ballet, La muñeca Negra. After returning to Peru, she founded and directed Black Theatre and Dances of Peru, where they performed around Lima and on Peruvian television, including the 1968 Cultural Olympics in Mexico City. By that time, she had already accomplished becoming the founding director of Conjunto National de Folklore and toured around North America and Europe. After the company disbanded in 1982, Victoria became a visiting professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. She became a tenured professor until she left in 1999. In 2014, she passed peacefully in her hometown of Lima and is credited as an important figure in Peruvian history.
Her worldwide famous poem “Me Gritaron ‘Negra!’” has been a monumental piece of art that is praised in the world of literature. Victoria Santa Cruz is a strong, empowering, and incredible figure that we celebrate today and everyday.
