Our little town held its yearly Bolivia Festival last month, and this year, I was able to spend a couple of hours at the park. Our boys didn’t participate in the soccer tournament this year, but I went anyway to watch the cultural dance troupes that are featured during the festival.
This year, it was the San Simon Caporales from the New Jersey chapter. The Caporales is a traditional Andean dance that originated in the La Paz Department of Bolivia. The dance is now also performed traditionally in Peru, Chile, and Argentina, but is notably danced outside of South America by Bolivian emigrants (from Wikipedia). For more info,click here.
From what I read in Wiki, this dance seems to feature the male dancers more prominently than the female dancers.
The male caporal depicts an old Spanish military guard. The heeled boots bearing large bells are known as “cascabeles”.
Wiki says that the male dancer carries a hat in his left hand and a whip in his right. Well, guess they did away with the whip lol
It’s always nice to see the younger generation pick up and continue the cultural traditions …
