After half a century focused on the rescue and promotion of Chile's traditional folklore, Raquel Barros Aldunate can not stand the common complaint about the country's ingratitude. The scarce recognition, the lack of valorization and even the scorn towards what's local -commonly seen in our country- are for this notorious woman facts that can't darken the satisfaction of doing an artistic work oriented to the elevation of the human being.

By Rosario Mena

At her 82 years of age, Raquel Barros Aldunate works daily, from dusk to dawn, taking care of all that's cultural on the Recoleta Municipality. She is the director of the Folkloric Group that carries her name, the oldest of its kind still working in Chile, created more than fifty years ago. In her case, age is just a data on her license, and the proof of the long time she has been accumulating an invaluable experience and wiseness rooted on our popular culture. Till now, nothing stops her from working full-time and driving her car from her house to the office, and then to the rehearsals, meetings and shows. Her vibrant face shows the passion that moves her. She won't doubt about dancing cueca if the moment calls for it, with the grace and spirit only she can give to it.

The oldest daughter of a traditional family with fourteen children, with a father who was a judge and a good piano player and a mother who was born an artist, she was raised among songs that she now shares with her siblings. Her immersion on folklore, she defines it as "providential". "Things turn out, first because in a time when no respected lady would dance the cueca, my mother would. Later, we would spend complete seasons on a farm in Melipilla and there a friend of my brother taught me how to dance".

The arrival to Chile of Spain's Chorus and Dances was a big incentive, followed by a scholarship in 1950 to study in Madrid and Barcelona with the most important professors of traditional Spanish music. "There I realized everything that could be done with folklore and what I could do to introduce it in other spaces, where it was completely forgotten". This concern took rapidly shape with the creation on the year 1952 of her own group. By then, Margot Loyola and Australia Acuña were rescuing and staging folkloric dances and music, but groups wouldn´t have much continuity, with the exception of Cuncumén, that was formed on 1954 and is still ongoing.