Paper short abstract:

This paper addresses the study of dancers' experience and the modalities of participation during the practice of traditional ritual dances of the Mapuche people in a contemporary urban context.

Paper long abstract:

Originally coming from the southern part of Chile, the Mapuche people represent the major indigenous group of this country. Today, the majority of its population lives in urban areas, particularly in Santiago (Casen, 2015). After the dictatorship of Pinochet, the urban Mapuche have been organising themselves into sociocultural and political associations that fight for the preservation and visibility of their culture, specifically linked to the transmission of kimun (ancestral knowledge). From the actors' point of view, the performance of traditional rites is fundamental to achieve this objective, Nguillatun being the most important rite.

After a year of immersion by Villegas Silva in urban Mapuche associations with a special focus on the Nguillatun, the actors' different modes of participation have been identified, as well as tensions between discourse and practices linked to the development, significance and proper function of the rite, according to participants' different hierarchical positions.

For this panel, we propose articulating the anthropology of dance, which is dedicated to the study of dance practices and the contexts in which they are performed (Grau and Wierre-Gore, 2006), and cognitive anthropology, which focusses on the cognitive dimensions of experience and the implicit knowledge at work in the activity (Rix & Biache, 2004). This enables us to delve into the dance practices around which the Nguillatun is organized, our aim being to approach the experience of the actors during the ritual celebration, beyond their conventional discourse on the significance of the rite in the urban environment.