Carnival, Gualeguaychu, Argentina
UPDATE: GALLERY OF IMAGES BELOW + SLIDESHOW
It was an amazing 24 hours awake. Yes, I was up for 24 hours to experience carnival in Gualeguaychu, Argentina, one of the largest celebrations in Argentina.
An estimated crowd of 28,000 people packed the Corsodromo in Gualeguaychu, about four hours from Buenos Aires in the province of Entre Rios on February 28, 2009. The nine week carnival season, known as ‘El Carnaval del País,’ runs the months of January, February and the first week of March and the city tourism website says many of the businesses in the city generate the majority of their income during this time. I have no doubt as the streets along the river, the more touristy area of Gualeguaychu, were packed so solid with cars that no one was moving. I had flashbacks to the Los Angeles I10/110 interchange.
Carnival begins each Saturday about 11:30pm and ends at nearly 4am when everyone pours into the streets and heads toward the river and for the bars, restaurants and clubs. I certainly wasn’t going to go to bed and spent the rest of the night playing pool with friends until the wee and really not so wee hours of the morning.
This is the first carnival I’ve photographed and the costumes were both incredibly inventive and colorful. Some dancers wore little to cover the essentials, much to the delight of both male and female revelers in the corsodromo. A total of three comparsas or samba clubs compete for the title of the carnival. Each group has up to five stages and hundreds of dancers interpreting a theme.
The first was Kamarr with a Hindu inspired story about Shangri-La. Next was Marí Marí with a dedication to the native populations of South America and lastly was Papelitos with a satirical look at the inequalities in political and social classes. Each comparsa is then judged on how well they interpret their theme through, dance, costumes and stages. The official website for carnival has more indepth information (Spanish).
Being on the ground and in the pathway of these stages, some stories high, with the carnival goers banging on the side walls, and the dancers moving every part of their body in sync with the rhythm and beat was a jolt of excitement, a rush of adrenaline that sends my brain cells into high gear. Which is probably why I was awake for a total of 24 hours.
Check out the audio slideshow ‘El Carnaval del País.’
UPDATE: Photos from the slideshow are in the gallery below. I added some images as well. Those that probably would not have passed the moral censor in the USA and those that I missed in the original edit for one reason or another.
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- Carnival, Gualeguaychu, Argentina
Wow – that’s awesome. You have some great timing in there with the audio and the photos. Nicely done!
I had no idea that it was a competition as well. Do you know if they compete for the title every weekend or is the title cumulative at the end in March? I wonder how much variety there is from week to week. The costumes and the floats don’t change, I imagine, but possibly the dancing could, but that also seems hard because then you’d be choreographing many different dances.
It is my understanding they are judged only once or overall, not every week. If you were to go to the first day of carnival and the last you would see the same costumes, stages, dances, etc…