Then, a week later, conmadres with my host sister and her friends:
And this week two days of national holidays, water fights, koas, and parties:
Of course the really big deal was Carnival itself, for which we went to Oruro. I sincerely tried to find out some things about about the festival in order to further our collective education, things like, why is it celebrated and how is it related to the specific dances and how do the various countries relate and what does it all mean? But no one seems to have concrete answers to any of these questions.
In Bolivia, Carnival is largely an Andean cultural celebration, loosely concealed under Catholic pretexts. Oruro hosts the biggest celebration in Bolivia, probably one of the largest in the world. Eight days of festivities (we stayed three), hundreds of bands made up of hundreds of musicians, over 350,000 dancers. Folks prepare for years to dance in Carnival, saving money to cover the massive band, costume, and entrance fees. UNESCO declared the festival a part of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. It's totally gorgeous, amazing, chaos. Insanity composed of water balloons, foam spray, masses, beer by the bucket load, urine, mud, noise, colors. The main dances are corporales, tinku, morenada, and the diablada. There were also some fat bear dancer sections and an amazonian set. The dancers come through in groups along with the bands, which are equally famous, and the crowds stick briefly to dancing instead of conducting war with each other. The dancers pass by continuously from 10am saturday till 10 at night sunday, pausing at sunrise sunday morning to dance into the main church and kneel. At night the devils danced through walls of fire.
And this week two days of national holidays, water fights, koas, and parties:
Of course the really big deal was Carnival itself, for which we went to Oruro. I sincerely tried to find out some things about about the festival in order to further our collective education, things like, why is it celebrated and how is it related to the specific dances and how do the various countries relate and what does it all mean? But no one seems to have concrete answers to any of these questions.
In Bolivia, Carnival is largely an Andean cultural celebration, loosely concealed under Catholic pretexts. Oruro hosts the biggest celebration in Bolivia, probably one of the largest in the world. Eight days of festivities (we stayed three), hundreds of bands made up of hundreds of musicians, over 350,000 dancers. Folks prepare for years to dance in Carnival, saving money to cover the massive band, costume, and entrance fees. UNESCO declared the festival a part of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. It's totally gorgeous, amazing, chaos. Insanity composed of water balloons, foam spray, masses, beer by the bucket load, urine, mud, noise, colors. The main dances are corporales, tinku, morenada, and the diablada. There were also some fat bear dancer sections and an amazonian set. The dancers come through in groups along with the bands, which are equally famous, and the crowds stick briefly to dancing instead of conducting war with each other. The dancers pass by continuously from 10am saturday till 10 at night sunday, pausing at sunrise sunday morning to dance into the main church and kneel. At night the devils danced through walls of fire.
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