Indigenous Dances

Creole Dances

Creole Imitation Dances

Colonial or Regal Dances

Origins of Honduran folk dances

The origins of the current Honduran folk dances can be traced back to the moment of contact with the European world. The indigenous traditions of dancers and fliers are repressed by the church but find new forms of manifestation through cultural and religious syncretism, that is, the union of both indigenous and Spanish cultural and religious elements, giving as a product a mixture of both cultures in which the indigenous culture, as an underlying culture, replaces all its pantheon of gods with Spanish images whose cult is allowed by Spanish priests without realizing that the same is a cultural escape under the pressure of the dominant culture. In this way we began to see indigenous rites in the form of fairs to some patron saint, such is the case of the Guancasco and the Dance of Moors and Christians in the region of Intibucá. The Compostura del Maiz is another clear example of the arrangement of the party to Tláloc to thank him for the harvest as a fair to San Esteban to thank him for a fruitful harvest of corn. The powerful gave parties at home as a way to share the economic bonanza while allowing their properties were the showcase through which they showed the power held within "X" social group. The servants, both those who worked in the house and in the fields, witnessed the dances and the rhythmic modalities of the time, which were copied by the less favored groups in their own social gatherings, often animated with guitar music and watch them in substitution of an orchestra.

There are indigenous dances or dances that are celebrated as a separate ritual, in the development of guancascos or encounters, which take place on different dates throughout the national geography. In those dances or native dances, expressions of religious syncretism are manifested, since along with the Catholic faith that unfolds around the patron saints involved in the guancasco, the native faith also moves. Most of the traditional dances are of Lenca origin and are of a representative nature, that is to say that they are made for a spectator audience. The Garífuna dances have the component of being representative and at the same time participatory, integrating the viewer into the ritual. Honduran folk dances have been maintained through the mayordomías, brotherhoods, mayors' offices and councils of elders and are carried out within ceremonies or rituals according to established schedules.

Sources for Honduran folk music recordings:

• CIOFF Honduras: Música Folklorica Hondureña
• Danzas folclóricas de Honduras (playlist of Gerson Sanchez)