Illustration: Oscar Zalles

The festival that rose from the ashes

The night is particularly freezing, but I wouldn’t advise you start a fire to warm up. On a night like this, a 24th of June, you risk a fine of almost 200 bolivianos (about $30) if you try to light even a little flame or firework. With more than a 1,000 police officers in la Paz enforcing this law, it’s simply not worth the risk.

The government of La Paz has implemented such strict legislation due to the famous customs of the San Juan celebration. Traditionally, families and neighbours gathered around big fires in which they burnt old furniture and any objects that belonged to the past or represented evil memories. Other than warming people up on what is considered to be the coldest night of the year, the fires served the alternative purpose of exorcising negative events in the past to start a new purified life. Using the fire to their advantage, families also cooked collective meal over the flames served with sucumbé or just straight singani.

Local authorities decided to forbid the fires more than 20 years ago because of the consequences of burning objects such as rubber tires. The fumes from this practice increased  pollution in the city, which posed health risks for paceños, increased fire hazards, and disrespected Pachamama’s right to enjoy uncontaminated air, as states in article 7 of Bolivia’s Law of the Rights of Mother Earth.

The fires have stopped as a result of the law, but did the San Juan festival disappear also? Thanks to the local company Stege, the celebration has continued. Instead of gathering around fires, people now meet and enjoy food around… barbecues and hot-dogs! Stege was the first company to introduce sausages to San Juan, given its expertise preparing sausages for the German embassy in La Paz. Stege began marketing its products nationwide for the 24 June celebration and decided to take advantage of the fortune-reading tradition of San Juan to promote the brand, adding lucky charms or amulets to their sausage packs. The new tradition has continued and the offers vary every year, featuring different kinds of bread, sauces and sausages. Every region of Bolivia has its own way of preparing hot dogs using traditional ingredients.

So, in 2018, people are gathering around barbecues. Their grandparents were lighting fires. But when did San Juan start and why?

The fires have stopped as a result of the law, but did the San Juan festival disappear also?

In the Andes, the Incas were already celebrating this special night as the starting point of a new year. However, it had a different name: Inti Raymi, which means ‘Sun festival’ in Quechua. The Incas honoured the rebirth of the sun and  ate uncooked corn and vegetables in order to purify themselves. The feast was maintained after the Spanish colonisation, but acquired another religious meaning. According to the bible, the prophet Zacarias lit a fire on the night of the 24 June to announce the birth of his son: Juan Bautista, making him perhaps the only saint to have had a commemorative day of his birth and not of when he died.

But this is not the only strange fact about San Juan. After reading my future in eggs, beer and melted tin (which is a local tradition), a yatiri explained to me the many beliefs that have emerged from San Juan along the years. When fires were still allowed at the festival, she said, it was common to start them in areas where people wanted the soil to be fertile. It was also the tradition at the time for people to walk across hot coals in order to show to the spirits they were unafraid. The majority of people did this fire-walk at midnight because the legend assured that your feet would not be burned at this time. Then, on the next day, people used to read their fortune for the next year in the ashes.

According to the yatiri one should refrain from sleeping on the night of San Juan to avoid being  tired for the rest of the year, but also reduce the risk being woken up with a water splash on the face. It is common for those who wake up first in a house to throw water on those that are still sleeping that day. Some even throw water on their neighbours! Others take a cold back at 4am to maintain their youth, or look out the window in search for the love of their life.

In the Andes, the Incas were already celebrating this special night. However, it had a different name: Inti Raymi, which means ‘Sun festival’ in Quechua.

The rituals and traditions of San Juan have changed over time, but one thing that is clear: it is still a festival at the beating heart of La Paz and of Bolivian life.

Photo: Jack Francklin

Denisse Arancibia is the mastermind behind the immensely powerful musical

The final showing on 4 July of the musical El Club de las Malcogidas brought an end to a production which took La Paz by storm for the past six weeks. The musical, whose title translates to ‘The Bad Fuck Club’, lived up to the hype of a theatrical performance encompassing boldness in every form, sharply written and directed by Denisse Arancibia and produced by Victoria Guerrero. The live performance is an adaptation of the 2017 film Las Malcogidas, also written and directed by Arancibia. Its plot centers on Carmen, played by Pamela Sotelo, who struggles through life due to her weight issues and inability to orgasm (hence the name of the production). Arancibia’s brother Bernardo plays Carmen’s trans sister, Karmen, and Marta Monzón plays the sisters’ grandmother.

An early scene sets the tone for the rest of the play. Álvaro, Carmen’s handsome neighbour (played by Kartiel Hidalgo), sits next to a plastic cutout of his girlfriend whilst eating a chocolate bar. Listening to his erotic over-enjoyment of the chocolate bar and noticing her family bashfully going about their daily chores, Carmen recognises that sex is happening all around her – and that she’s missing out on something important in her life. Her only hope is through her friend Lucho (Diego Paz), who works with Carmen at the only adult movie theatre in town. Despite the affection he shows her, she continually rejects his advances until the end, when she falls into his arms.

‘People see themselves in the mirror on a daily basis and don’t want to laugh, but it is easy to laugh at others, who are acting on stage, for the same reason.’

—Pamela Sotelo

The production has many more underlying themes than just Lucho’s battle to win over the gorda, as Carmen is regularly called by her companions and grandmother. Sotelo explains the musical’s approach to explicit themes creates a feeling of unease amongst the audience which eventually elicits laughter, rather than the musical a comedy itself. She notes that ‘people see themselves in the mirror on a daily basis and don’t want to laugh, but it is easy to laugh at others, who are acting on stage, for the same reason.’ An important meaning of the play is revealed just before the end of one scene, in which all the characters reveal inherent characteristics of themselves that indicate they all sobran – they are all lonely and unwanted. Carmen, for example, says, ‘Fat people sobran.’ Each of the characters has a shortcoming in her life; it’s the universal condition.

Musically, production is very powerful. ‘All the songs construct the narrative of the work,’ Bernardo Arancibia says, ‘and at the same time strengthen the characters.’ One song, ‘Bailar hasta caer’ (‘Dance until you fall’), by AtellaGali, is particularly relevant for Arancibia’s character, Karmen. It was this raw humour that left the audience in a state of unease, uncertain whether to laugh awkwardly or to sit in silence. So, too, was Lady Gaga’s ‘Born This Way’ a very apt song choice, bringing to the fore the issue of sexuality and gender in Bolivia.

Musical director Miguel Vargas worked with the house band, las Mentes Ociosas, to tightly connect the music to the action on stage throughout the production. Like a Greek chorus, las Mentes Ociosas were consulted at times by Álvaro, who asks for their opinion on matters. They also play the part of Álvaro’s imaginary band, los Espermos (the Sperms) – and they face the wrath of Carmen and Karmen’s grandmother, whom Monzón plays with verve. Monzón, who played the same character in the film, says she had to adapt significantly to the demands of the play. ‘It’s a premeditated relationship between the actors, the director and the audience,’ she says.

‘All the songs construct the narrative of the work and at the same time strengthen the characters.’

—Bernardo Arancibia

El Club de las Malcogidas was a great success. The musical draws upon an array of modern issues and transforms its characters’ – and by extension the audience’s – often uncomfortable differences and flaws not just to create humour, but also to highlight that we all have our issues.

Now with a film and a musical under her belt, director Denisse Arancibia is ready to move on. ‘The film was the best project of my life,’ she says. ‘The play was the cherry on top of the cake, as a last taste to leave the Carmens behind and dedicate myself to new projects.’

Illustration: Oscar Zalles

Bolivia’s indigenous philosophical traditions

The Quechua and Aymara people of Bolivia and Peru have a cosmological vocabulary that helps to describe the relations between contradictory forces in nature. Below is a selection of indigenous concepts that describe the nature of these contradictions:

Pachakuti: This word can be broken down into the suffixes pacha, which means ‘world’, and kuti meaning ‘upheaval’ or ‘revolution.’ Pacha can be broken down further into pa, meaning ‘dual’, and cha, meaning ‘energy’, describing how the world is defined by duality. Pachakuti is used to describe a general transformation of order or a paradigm shift. According to the pueblos andinos, the last pachakuti occurred with the arrival of the Spanish, around 500 years ago. Some even claim that we are in the midst of another pachakuti right now!

Taypi: This refers to a place where everything unites or reunites, the centre of the universe. For example, some believe that the ancient site of Tiwanaku, near Lake Titicaca, is a taypi. It’s a meeting point of all positive and negative forces where contradictory forces can cohabit, creating equilibrium with their union.

Tinku: Whilst a simple translation into Spanish is un encuentro (‘a meeting’), tinku has a much more profound significance in Andean cosmology. It is a meeting that seeks to resolve tensions that exist between two parts, a point where two forces travelling in distinct directions connect with the intention to achieve taypi (see below). It exists not just conceptually but as a physical ritual performed to consolidate opposing groups. Tinku is the name for ritualistic fights between two communities, and while these might appear to be violent, their function is to unite two opposing factions.

Yanantin: This refers to things that belong together, like a pair of eyes or hands.Yanantin is often used to describe the concept of marriage. By allowing the forces of two halves to meet, the opposing forces are joined together. All social equilibrium depends on the exchange of forces situated in a taypi, in which the different forces meet and ultimately achieve una igualación known as yanantin. On a human scale, in terms of marriage, yanantin is the application of a principle of opposing forces that exist in hierarchical relationships, for example, when a male presides over a female in activities associated with his gender, whereas a woman presides over traditionally female activities.

Masintin: Yanintin is often seen more as ‘yanintin-masintin’ which embodies the concept of complementary opposites. The reciprocity consolidates the unity of the two components making them one. Yanantin and masintin regulate the relations that an individual has with the outside world in a both literal and cosmological sense. Masintin describes the process by which the yanintin pair is paired.