Victoria Eugenia Santa Cruz Gamarra was born in the Peruvian capital to a large and vibrant family of thinkers and creators. Through her multifaceted artistic and cultural contributions, she celebrated the richness, diversity and intellectual heritage of Afro-descendant lives, placing their experiences and collective memory at the heart of her work. V. Santa Cruz boldly confronted the structural racism embedded in Latin America, shaped by the pervasive ideologies of mestizaje – a whiteness-centred framework of racial mixture intertwined with class and gender hierarchies. Her enduring legacy includes pioneering works that expanded the horizons of (Afro-)Peruvian culture, initiatives that mentored generations of emerging talent and a profound engagement with the global currents of Black Internationalism.

From 1958 to 1961, V. Santa Cruz co-founded and co-directed Cumanana, Peru’s first Black theatre company, with her brother Nicomedes Santa Cruz (1925–1992). The company explored Afro-Peruvian history through race, gender and class in plays like Malató (1961), recordings such as Ingá (1960), and songs like “Callejón de un solo caño” [Narrow alley with only one way out, 1958]. While with Cumanana, V. Santa Cruz developed a training method of self-rediscovery and reconnection with African cultural roots through inner cadence and “memoria ancestral” [ancestral memory], a concept refined throughout her career and captured in her book Ritmo… El eterno organizador [Rhythm… The eternal organiser, 2004].

Between 1962 and 1966 V. Santa Cruz studied theatre and choreography in Paris at the Université du Théâtre des Nations and École Supérieure des Études Chorégraphiques, with such professors as the actor Jean-Louis Barrault, the playwright Eugène Ionesco and the choreographer Maurice Béjart. She also worked as a costume designer, and premiered her ballet La muñeca negra [The Black Doll, 1965] at the Théâtre de la Ville-Sarah Bernhardt.

Upon returning to Peru, V. Santa Cruz founded the troupe Teatro y Danzas Negros del Perú [Peru’s Black Theatre and Dances] in 1967, performing nationally and internationally, including at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, and producing later works like Negro es mi color [Black is My Colour, 1980]. In 1969, V. Santa Cruz became director of the Escuela Nacional de Folklore [National School of Folklore]. In 1973, she founded and directed the Conjunto Nacional de Folklore [National Folklore Company], integrating dances from the coast, sierra and Amazonas. Under her direction, the Conjunto Nacional performed in Peru and toured North and Central America, and Europe. The following year, she was invited by Senegal’s président-poète and Négritude co-founder, Leopold Sédar Senghor, to the International Colloquium on Négritude and Latin America held in Dakar.

After ending her tenure in 1982, V. Santa Cruz bid farewell to the country with the show Adiós al Perú [Farewell to Peru], and moved to Pittsburgh (USA) to teach at Carnegie Mellon, retiring as Professor Emerita in 1999. She returned to Peru in 2000, expanding her work to explore themes of music and health and engaging in national media. In 2004, she directed and performed her last production, La magia del ritmo [The magic of rhythm]. V. Santa Cruz died in Lima in 2014 and was honoured with a lying-in-state at the National Museum. Since her passing, her poetry and performances have been showcased in museums and cultural centers across Peru, France, and the United States. In 2024, the Peruvian State honored her life’s work by declaring it National Cultural Heritage.

Rooted in a decolonial, feminist and antiracist ethos, V. Santa Cruz’s work examines Blackness through the lens of the Black Atlantic from an Afro-diasporic Latin American perspective shaped by her lived experiences and political commitments. This perspective is powerfully embodied in her seminal spoken-word poem ¡Me Gritaron Negra! [They Shouted ‘Black Girl!’ at Me, 1978]. In the 2010–2020s, the growing resonance of ¡Me Gritaron Negra! has amplified V. Santa Cruz’s influence far beyond Peru, solidifying her as one of the most prominent cultural icons of African descent in Latin America and the Spanish-speaking world.