Los diablos de Yare. (http://www.artrbd.com/yare).
This exhibition is focused on an old Venezuelan tradition, "Los Diablos Danzantes de Yare" (The Dancing Devils of Yare).This colorful Corpus Christi celebration takes place in San Francisco de Yare, a small town close to Caracas. The roots of this representation of the symbolic struggle between Good and Evil can be traced back to the Middle Ages in Europe.
Up until recently, I was not an advocate of our traditional folklore. Perhaps due to an over-estimation of classical European culture, I was not able to regard these popular and archival cultural expressions in their appropriate framework.
For us "civilized" and intellectual westerners, what is the right approach to these rituals? With derision? With a superiority complex ? By taking naïve tourist snapshots? By comparing it with our culture? I think otherwise.
I believe it is wiser to accept the challenge of contrasting rather than comparing these distinct cultural poles. When carefully examining the issues involved, they focus on the same, great, unsolved issues of our "advanced" technological culture, such as: God, Death, Good and Evil, Religion, and Cosmogony.
|
Comments (-1)
