Changes/Developments

The pericon was at first a slow dance accompanied by instruments. Nowadays when it is performed it can have an instrumental accompany, but often CDs or other music devises are used. The pericon used to be a social folk dance that the community would participate in but now it is not something that is done very often. There is a dance group that will sometimes incorporate the pericon into their performances. Other than that the school children perform it on their independence day, which is August 25.

Nowadays, scholarly educational institutions seek to maintain the tradition of el pericon between the students and creole societies, especially the society or community of Elias Regules, they are in charge of preserving the “sacred fire” of the folkloric roots. 

Instrumental Accompany

The Argentinian zamba dance, is said to be a dance derived from the Pericon:

Clothing

Back when it was more common, the people performing it wore traditional Uruguayan clothing. Men wore gaucho clothing. Gauchos are like the cowboys of South American countries. Gaucho clothing includes cotton trousers, gaucho pants, ponchos, and gaucho hats, sombreros, and a scarf around the neck. Women often wore a white blouse with a scarf around their waist. And the skirt was long, to their ankles, and had a lot of fabric so when they held it to the sides, it looked like a fan. The skirt could be anything, but it usually had bright colors. When the pericon is performed now, sometimes the performers will dress up in traditional clothing. However, since it is usually performed by school children on Independence Day, the students are often in their school uniforms.

Choreography and Music

MUSIC

The person credited as being the founder of the music was an amateur musician named Jose Luis Perez. He was the one who wrote the pericon in 1885 and it premiered in the summer of 1887 by the band of the National School of Arts and Crafts, which was directed by Gerardo Grasso. The most popular version of the pericon was a version written by Gerardo Grasso, which premiered the same year.

CHOREOGRAPHY

There are thirty-four figures in the choreography.  It includes relations (dialogue) and ends with the men and women forming a representaion of the national flag out of their scarves. The women holding the blue scarves, and the men holding the white scarves, represents the stripes of the flag. The bastonero couple has a yellow scarf which symbolizes the sun on the flag and of their country. More figures were also added to the choreography. The most important figures and the figures that every dance must have are called: two wheels for the basket, swing or rock, the streets, molinetes, the mirror, demand, chain, giant wheel, waltz, relations, the bridge of scarves/handkerchiefs, and a representation of the flag.

*Relation: funny dialogue spoken in rhyme phrases during the dance

*Bastonero:the person giving the command in the dances, he serves as the master of ceremony. The bastonero is also usually the oldest man or the man with the most experience.The bastonero says aura when giving instructions. Aura is a modified version of the word ahora, which means now. Arua is used to tell someone to make the new figure now, so that they all do it at the same time.

History

El Pericon is the national dance of Uruguay. It is a dance with loose couples and is associated with historical folklore of the pampas regions and the coast. This dance dates back to the end of the end of the eighteenth century. Its origin comes from the English quadrille. In the 1820s the dance is used in the comedy house theater and it keeps its peak until 1850.Many people believe that the pericon came from another dance called el cielito (the sky).

By 1885 El Pericon was left behind and forgotten. In late 1889, Jose Podesta’s circus which had settled in Montevideo, announced the spoken version of Juan Moreira. This was during the circus. In the circus, el gato (the cat) was danced but at the end of one of the circus nights, Dr. Elias Regules suggested to Podesta that instead of dancing el gato, they should perform El Pericon. Regules told Podesta that he would teach it to the actors. The next morning Regules, with a group of eastern guitarists, taught the actors the dance. When they performed it that night, it is a huge success. That is also when they decided that blue and white scarves should be used to form the figure of the Uruguayan flag. This resurfaced El Pericon and the Podesta circus company took charge of spreading El Pericon to Argentina, Italy, and Spain.