In 2014, the city of La Paz was named one of the Seven New Urban Wonders of the World by the New7Wonders Foundation. This global distinction came after a long and hard-fought campaign spearheaded by the city government and local citizens. It remains a badge of honour for us, as well as a central theme of the city’s efforts to bolster tourism. This award is both a boon to, and result of, La Paz’s emergence onto the world stage.
The attention given to the city is not unwarranted. The teleférico system has revolutionised transport here, for citizens and guests alike. The city’s gastronomic reputation is gaining renown as new restaurants, cafés and bars are focusing on local ingredients to create a distinct modern cuisine. The arts in this city are gaining more and more support as musicians and theatres receive more recognition abroad and more support locally, and the walls of the city come to life with bright murals by local artists. The list of ways in which La Paz is evolving, both culturally and economically, sometimes seems endless.
Such recognition as bestowed on La Paz in the past few years does not come without work. While a city may grow and improve organically in some ways, gaining attention from abroad does take planning and coordination. A lot of thought has gone into how La Paz presents itself, and what this presentation means. In some ways, its identity is carefully crafted, honed (albeit in a decentralised way) to put the city’s best face forward. Much like a person carefully shaping their identity through edited posts and rehearsed smiles on social media, performance is the name of the game, as the city creates a more modern and trendy image and shares it with the world.
We want to look at performance as a way to understand the things happening around us. In La Paz, as anywhere, people are performing every day: in the street, on stages, in work meetings, at social functions. The clothes we wear, the words we use, the actions we take, all put forward representations of who we are, or at least who we want to be. In this issue of Bolivian Express, we take a look at the people, organisations, and places around us, and explore the relationships between who or what they are, how they present themselves, and how we see and interpret them. By looking at Bolivia in this way, we refuse to take things at face value and commit to digging deeper to make sense of why things are shown as they are.
We look at traditional performers, and what they put into their craft, from standup comedians to Bolivian K-pop fanatics. We visit the Conservatorio Plurinacional de Música to review the state of opera and classical music in Bolivia, and spend an afternoon with Juan Carlos Aduviri, a renown Bolivian actor honing his vision for a cinematic style that is purely alteño. And we meet a group of homeless young people living on the street and changing their lives through hip-hop. We also learn about the performance of work, and hear from Bolivian entrepreneurs to understand how they use their experiences to present innovative ideas to local and international marketplaces. And a young bartender talks about his goals for reinventing La Paz’s cocktail scene, using taste, smell (palo santo! tobacco!) and sight to create inspired and stunning drinks.
La Paz’s ascent onto the international stage is undeniable. Plenty of international attention has been paid to this city as a cultural, culinary, and general tourist destination. Hopefully this issue of Bolivian Express helps spread the word on what La Paz and the rest of Bolivia has to offer, and to encourage everyone to stop and watch the show that is life here. It is one not to be missed.
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Photos: Nick somers and Fabian Zapata
Or, how to dress like a hippie
The 2017 guidebook on how to be a hippie is very clear:
Be from Argentina, Chile, or Colombia
Congregate in specific places in South America. In La Paz, you may find them at the corners of Plaza Abaroa.
Develop a craft: street performing or juegos malabares are common, or at least the most noticeable – juggling at street lights and tightrope walking without falling to a tragic death. The skills, I admit, are actually pretty solid.
Most importantly, shop or find your clothes and accessories at Hippie Outfitters – or the nearest bin.
Evidently, there is a sartorial code that hippies must adhere to or their syndicate would have to file a complaint. Bolivian Express set out to photograph these malabaristas out of their den:
Jonathan, 22, Colombia
Not the most loquacious being, Jonathan is wearing the standardised hippie uniform. Sporting an immaculate Florida Gators hoodie most likely retrieved from the innumerable piles of what used to be clothes from the El Alto market, he completes the look with the classic but unfathomable combination of shorts with leggings. Admittedly, it’s cold in La Paz this time of year; the summer hippie look is usually just shorts and a lot of tattooed skin. Let’s not forget the nose rings and dreadlocks which are provided to every new hippie in their welcome pack.
José Luis, 30, Argentina
The closest thing to a halo is obviously a wheel that you wear upon your head. It might not protect you much from the rain – unless you can spin it really, really fast – but it gives you this innocent look that might dupe the unsuspecting driver. Let’s not be fooled, the tattooed flames coming out of José Luis’ sleeves are evidence of the growing theory that hippies come from the eighth circle of hell.
Vanessa, 26, Argentina
Juggling with a magic wand and a sceptre (more evidence that hippies are not quite from this realm?), Vanessa wears an interesting combination of orange argyle leggings and a skeleton-printed jumper adorned with a matching headband. This look wouldn’t be complete without some Beetlejuice shorts. The fashion statement here is strong, almost inexplicable, one could say.
William, 26, Colombia
William knows that if you are wearing extravagant makeup you need to tone it down with a more conventional outfit, which he is totally doing with a little black hoodie and matching sweatpants. Another testament to his good taste is that he knows how to complement his red T-shirt with the colour of his cap. Unfortunately, the overall look (masquerade-ball makeup combined with that ‘I’m a vagrant’ look) remains a bit dubious, but I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt: maybe he just returned from one of the famous hippie masquerade parties thrown in Copacabana.
Andrés, 19, Colombia
The youngest of our malabaristas, Andrés has much to learn. It looks like he hasn’t fully opened his welcome pack, as there are no nose rings or tattoos to be seen (but then there is a strong chance that there are a few hidden from the sun – we weren’t willing to investigate further). The clothes are a bit uninspired, and in another context we might not be able to fully recognise his hippieness. Fortunately, walking on a rope while juggling clubs in the middle of traffic is quite the telltale sign.
Photo: Sophie Hogan
Claudia Cárdenas is touching lives with Fundación VIVA
After being ushered up to the third floor of the VIVA headquarters in Calacoto, a well-off neighbourhood in La Paz, we see Claudia Cárdenas, who has a strong and commanding presence. She is polite and confident in how she greets us, eager to talk about the work that is her passion. With the imminent annual photo contest, which is one of the biggest events of the year for the foundation, there is much to talk about.
Claudia came to VIVA in 2008 with ample experience in television and government, as well as a fresh flow of ideas for the mobile company’s budding NGO. And so, that year, Fundación VIVA was created. She has kept the drive of the foundation focused on doing good in Bolivia and making the country better in ways that had not been undertaken before. ‘I studied economics, and so I know my way around finances,’ Claudia says, as we sit at her desk in the VIVA headquarters. ‘I worked for the government for seven years in external financing. Television was always more of a hobby for me, and my plan was to do something surrounding social responsibility,’ she continues.
One of the programmes she has developed is VIVO Seguro, a mobile app for emergencies. ‘We work directly with the police to manage it,’ she explains. ‘If someone is in trouble, they can open the app and press the panic button, which alerts the nearest police officer using your GPS location. It can contact the nearest officer by telephone regardless of whether you are on TIGO, VIVA or Entel.’ The project is evidently thriving. There are already 300 lines across the country. The calls are paid for by the foundation and therefore completely free to the user. What’s more, you can upload an emergency contact that you can call through the app. For those without actual phone credit, it could be lifesaving.
‘By the end of April, we already had 66,233 downloads of the app, which is not only more than we hoped for, but a huge achievement in itself. And there is still more to do,’ Claudia points out. Her challenge is to improve the living conditions of people through tools such as technology, citizen safety and species preservation. ‘The reality is you have to give something away by doing these projects. We must help others develop abilities to look after themselves, and better the country as a whole through our assistance with these projects.’
However, the most current and exciting project for the foundation is its photo contest. In its seventh year, the competition entails taking photos of different species that dwell within Bolivian borders. The foundation selects four species per year for the contest. This year’s competition includes the pink river dolphin, an emblem of the VIVA Foundation. 'In the previous versions, we have included more than 16 species in danger of extinction. We work with the Ministry of Environment and Water, and the NGO Conservation International, to choose the species,' Claudia explains.
'We are saving lives with the citizen security project, and our photo contest is helping us spread the word and save the lives of endangered species.' - Claudia Cárdenas
The winning photos are then put onto the tarjetas that people buy to install credit onto their mobile phones. Putting the animals on the tarjetas is important to the cause, as many people do not even know that some of these animals exist in Bolivia. ‘We receive applications from both national and international photographers who are residents in our country,’ she says. ‘The prize money has this year been raised to $1500, and each winning photographer will have their name on the tarjeta, to recognise the rights of ownership, and spread their work throughout the country.’
The photos of species that are eligible this year are: the river dolphin, the black cayman, the eagle of Azara, and the Andean snake. Anyone can enter, but they must be within the country when receiving the prizes, and when the tarjetas are being issued. ‘Last year, a boy from Peru was successful because his photo was taken right inside the border; the photos must be taken in Bolivian territory,’ Claudia says.
‘We are saving lives with the citizen security project, and our photo contest is helping us spread the word and save the lives of endangered species,’ Claudia smiles. ‘It brings me great joy to know we are helping the people of Bolivia.’ It is clear that Claudia is completely committed to the foundation of her own creation, and it’s easy to see she is passionate about the work she does. As she continues with her ongoing efforts, we hope there are many more exciting projects to come.
Photo: Sophie Hogan
Creating Comedy and Culture
‘Comedy strengthens us, it stresses us, it helps us, because when we create material we are analysing ourselves,’ Yumi Roca tells me. Yet, as La Maldita Comedia, a four-piece standup group, starring Yumi, Mau Mendoza, Victor Ríos, and newest member Marcos Quevedo, explain to me, their experience has been as much about self-exploration as it has about analysing their environment.
Sitting in Café Blueberries while we wait for the second half of the quartet, I ask both Mau and Yumi about the group’s origins. ‘When we started there was essentially zero standup scene, no culture whatsoever,’ Mau explains. Unlike many of their foreign counterparts, the biggest task facing these four has been not to create material but to familiarise their audience with the idea of it.
The group’s name is a play on words of Dante’s La Divina Comedia, translated, in PG terms, as ‘Damn Comedy’. But when the quartet appear on mainstream television, they must shrug off their name and be referred to as simply ‘a comedy group’. The irony of this is that La Maldita Comedia are, by any measure, the standup comedy group here in Bolivia. Tellingly, this kind of censorship is indicative of the difficulties faced, and overcome, by these comics.
‘The paceño public is reluctant, timid to laugh,’ Yumi laments. ‘So for a joke where they might have to laugh at us, they feel guilty. They have to understand that this is standup: You laugh at yourself, at life, at any situation – particularly in such a chaotic city as La Paz.’
A few days after our brief meeting, I have the chance to see three-quarters of La Maldita Comedia perform, and I discover just how intrinsically specific their material is to their home city.
‘Comedy strengthens us, it stresses us, it helps us – because when we create material, we are analysing ourselves’
– Yumi Roca, La Maldita Comedia
Towards the rear of Café MagicK, with candlelit, intimate tables facing the back of the room, the atmosphere is tailor-made for standup. Well, that is until Marcos emerges and realises that his giraffe-like height elides inconveniently with the stage’s overhanging curtain. In a 25-minute show, the audience is treated to a medley of monologues, with styles that are distinct yet united by a brave stand-and-deliver-style narration, striving to shine a new light on quotidian issues of the city.
From microbuses and Morales to cholitas and Chumacero – a star football player for the Bolivian national team – the group explores what it means to be paceño. This is a city of contrasts and contradictions, ‘a real mix’, as Mau puts it. ‘In the day you might work in a bank, and in the evening you might visit a yatiri.’ Exploring these antitheses within paceño identity and lifestyle has provided a bottomless source of content.
‘This is the sort of material that people find difficult to accept, shocking at first,’ Yumi explains. ‘But it is something real. And It is not bad to laugh at reality.’ Their routines are whimsical, well-constructed and – if not in content, then in style – reminiscent of Western standup comedians. Victor Ríos sheds light on this latter aspect: ‘What I try to do, a little, is to take American standup styles and translate that into a local frame of reference.’
It is unsurprising that the group has had to take its inspiration from abroad. Before its formation, three years ago, Bolivia’s standup comedy scene was something of a buccaneering one-man crusade. Javier ‘Javicho’ Soria, 37, has made a name for himself across the border in Argentina, gaining critical acclaim for his routines exploring Bolivian identity through a mocking, self-deprecating voice. While Soria has been looking out, La Maldita Comedia have been looking in.
The group has never performed outside La Paz, let alone Bolivia, and they admit freely that their material needs as much a translation as a tweak if they are to find success across the country. However, with a nationwide tour in the pipeline, more ‘universal’ routines are on the horizon.
Yet the group should not lose their essence. In Mau’s words, ‘We talk about themes that are not often talked about in comedy, themes specific to La Paz, heavy themes like religion, sex, abortion, politicians.’ Now, these are very clearly not themes exclusive to La Paz, however when you give them a paceño context, whether that be their censorship, their illegality, or their corruption, they take on a new importance. By addressing a subject as sensitive as abortion, as Yumi does in her routine, with a comedic frame, you are normalising a discussion around it. And only through discussion can society evolve. ‘The advantage that a comedian has is this white flag that allows them to talk about whatever topic,’ Yumi tells me. ‘Not with a lack of respect, but with a sense of humour.’
Learning to laugh at yourself and your environment is a rehabilitative and restorative process. La Maldita Comedia, by creating both comedy about and a standup culture within La Paz, might just have more influence on their city’s future identity than they realise.
