LIMA 2019 | 18th Pan American Games Closing Ceremony

Peru and its culture on the world stage, showcasing a creative, original, diverse and contemporary place

The Lima 2019 Closing Ceremony staged a “Dance of Diversity”.
The artefacts of Peru’s ancient cultures left the museum shelves. Moments of daily life danced out of embroidered images. Hundreds of performers took the public on a dance across the country, from the coast, over the mountains and into the Amazon, in a tribute to the great diversity of that rich and beautiful land.
The set design was composed of stonework fragments, inspired by the walls built with incredible skill by the Incas. It had a layered configuration, which references both the excavation of different historical eras and the three pachas, or levels, of the Andean worldview: the world of the gods, the earthly world and the world of ancestors.
The performance area was an ever-changing space, transformed by projections, tracing different paths that evoked the Qhapaq Ñan: the vast Inca road system which connected the empire’s lands. The arrangement of the stages hinted at the citadel of Machu Picchu, the place where the Intihuatana, our cauldron, was founded.