High heels for Jesus

Cathy Alexander

I wondered what this highly-charged fiesta, which was sponsored by the beer company Pacena, could have to do with religion. Was Jesus an excuse for a party?

IN party-loving South America, piety is anything but drab.

20,000 raunchily-dressed dancers crammed the streets of the Bolivian capital of La Paz recently in the name of Jesus.

The annual parade is called the Senor Jesus del Gran Poder (Lord Jesus of Great Power), or Gran Poder for short. The parade has labelled itself “the major fiesta in the Andes” and, given that no-one has contested the title, the name has stuck.

The first dancers hit the streets on the morning of June 11, imbeccably costumed and made-up. The most popular dancers were the young women in knee-high boots, tiny skirts and flash knickers. Their dancing was constrained by their huge heels but their routine — doffing their top hats and shaking their hips — was a hit with the thousands of spectators who paid top dollar to sit in tiered seating by the roadside.

The sexy women were followed by men dressed as devils and donkeys. One grand masked man puffed on a massive pipe which pumped out green smoke. Boys dressed as African slaves danced in their shackles.

They danced in groups of up to 60, interspersed with brass bands who each played a different short tune over and over.

As the streets of the world´s highest capital warmed up, assistants darted amongst the dancers offering them beer. The dancers sweated and strained in their heavy costumes and the spectators cheered their efforts and drank in sympathy.

Beer was everywhere

Hours later and the dancers still wound down the streets. Night fell and the dancing became wilder, the music louder. Beer was everywhere.

I wondered what this highly-charged fiesta, which was sponsored by the beer company Pacena, could have to do with religion. Was Jesus an excuse for a party?

The locals I asked were adamant: Gran Poder was a genuine display of Christian faith. They all used the word “devocion” (devotion) to explain why the dancers danced.

A young women working in a book exchange told me Gran Poder was a very emotional day for Catholics. She said the dances represented Bolivian stories and traditions, some dating to pre-Colombus days. She said the dancers danced for Jesus, and the crowd was there for Jesus too. She had tears in her eyes as she told me what the parade meant to her.

The La Paz daily newspaper El Diaro said Gran Poder was a devotional spectacle which dated from colonial times. El Diario said some of the dances were invented by indigenous Bolivians, who had not been colonised, to satirise the Spanish. Inca traditions of dancing “solemnly and rhythmically” also influenced Gran Poder, according to the newspaper.

Gran Poder stumbled to a finish about 4am. Drunk people reeled through the streets, some in magnificent but disordered costumes. The steep cobbled streets of the city ran with urine.

Later the church bells rang out over the exhausted streets of La Paz, but few people made it to the services.

Cathy Alexander, formerly of the Burnie Advocate, now in Argentina.