Yucatan Dance and Typical Dress
If this is your first visit to the Yucatan Peninsula, you will surely wonder what the people who live there are like. The peninsula includes the states of Campeche, Quintana Roo and Yucatan. In these states the mixture of the Mayan and Spanish cultures gave rise to both the regional dances and costumes that are currently used. Although not many people, especially in cities, use the traditional Yucatecan dress, in many small towns the tradition of wearing it is still preserved, as well as the use of the Mayan language.
The regional costume par excellence is the so-called “terno”, which is worn by women in the popular festivities of their towns in the so-called “vaquerias” where they use it to dance Jarana, a popular folk dance from the southeast of Mexico.
The terno is a truly work of art that takes about six months for the prodigious hands of the mestizos to make. The mestizos wear simpler outfits in their daily lives, the women wear white square neck dresses with colored flowers embroidered on top and also the lower part of the skirt.
The jarana is a musical rhythm that was born from the mixture of Mayan rhythms and the jota of Aragon from Spain. Currently it is danced in religious festivities of the towns in annual festivities dedicated to the saint of the town, these festivities are called vaquerias, where men and women dress in their best dresses to dance the jarana.
Sources: Gobierno del Estado de Yucatan – Videos: Elias Hau – Yucatan Ancestral
