A concert of nearly 5,000 banda musicians opened Bolivia’s long-running Andean carnival on Saturday, a colorful mix of indigenous folklore, street dancing, queens, sensuality and rites to Pachamama (Mother Earth).
Hours before the concert, the La Paz mayor’s office chose the traditional characters of the La Paz carnival; the chola —a woman with a skirt of Aymara origin—, the cucumber and the chuta.
In Oruro, 110 kilometers west of La Paz in the altiplano region, a thunderous concert by a hundred brass bands kicked off the largest Bolivian cultural event, whose highlight is the Entrada Folclórica on Saturday, February 18. , declared a Masterpiece of Oral Heritage by UNESCO. Each band has about a hundred members.
Every year the Oruro Carnival Entrance brings together more than 20,000 dancers and musicians who dance through the streets of that mining city. Due to its great popularity and tourist attraction, this celebration is one of the most important carnivals on the continent along with that of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
The typical dance is the diablada or dance of the devils of pre-Hispanic origin that mixes Catholic and pagan beliefs of the pre-Hispanic Andean peoples, according to anthropologists.
The Bolivian carnival concludes on Tuesday, February 21, with offerings to Pachamama, to which devotees ask for good harvests, health, and prosperity in business.
The authorities calculate that the carnival in all the regions of the country, including the east, moves more than one hundred million dollars, an important injection for the battered economy of the country.
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