Dance and Music : Sounds of Peru at Casa de Adobe

Rich with ripening grapes, figs and pomegranates, the large, ranchero-style courtyard of Casa de Adobe in Highland Park provided backdrop and atmosphere for a engaging program of mostly Peruvian music and dance on Saturday night.

Presented by the Southwest Museum, the six musicians and four dancers of the locally based Inca company surveyed the blend of Andean, coastal, Spanish and African traditions that make Peruvian culture unique--ignoring only the perennially under-appreciated heritage of the Amazon.

Technological eclecticism ruled, with an electric guitar prominent alongside ancient panpipes, a bamboo seed-tube, rattles made from hoofs, a box drum and a wooden facsimile of a tiny guitar usually made from an armadillo shell.

Although Cecilia Courtois sang with great sweetness of tone and warmth of expression, Inca’s secret weapon turned out to be Fernando Popayan, a master of woodwinds, particularly the distinctive sweet-and-sour Andean flute.

Selections from the Lake Titacaca area (on the Peruvian-Bolivian border) found his breath-control especially tested, whether in the fast, flute-driven “Inti Raymi” or in “Pueneda Marinera,” which also incorporated Spanish guitar filigree and vibrant drumming.

The virtuoso flute-and-panpipe duet with Hector Courtois in “Tarkeada” (from the same region) piled overtones on overtones, so that we seemed to be hearing the instruments echo off distant mountains. The accents of drum and rattles, percussive slaps on a guitar and, at the end, a fierce blare from two squared-off flutes created a stark yet varied sound-scape.

Among the dances, “Valicha” from the Cuzco area featured couples in red and black playfully trying to rope one another either with braided cords (the men) or fluffy garlands (the women). Fast, alternately percussive and skipping footwork set off these linkups, with the women twirling under the leashes as the men led them away.

Women in pleated full-skirts and men in elegant white serapes swooped, waved handkerchiefs and executed intricate crisscross steps in “Sacachispas,” from the northern coast. Everyone dressed for maximum flash in “Pio-Pio,” but these men (in flared trousers and florally decorated velvet vests) and women (in striped shawls, black skirts and fancy underskirts) spent much of the time roughly shoving one another away. Slam dancing, Peruvian style.

Afro-Peruvian dances included ‘Festejo” (Inga) in which two barefoot women in ruffled shorts and halter tops opened their arms, shook their shoulders and rolled their hips. The inevitable “Alcatraz” showed dancers carrying candles attempting to singe their partners’ rears--a dire fate that could only be avoided by vigorous hip-action. Happily, everyone survived unburnt.