RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Musicians and folkloric dancers were ready to open the biggest festival of the season in the Bolivian city of Oruro until everything was abruptly interrupted because authorities were anxious about the Omicron coronavirus variant.
The famous Oruro Carnival, one of the longest in the world and recognized as an oral and intangible heritage of humanity, thus became the activity most affected by the pandemic.
Covid-19, which forced the suspension of the Oruro Carnaval in 2021, seemed to be in retreat at the beginning of October when folklore enthusiasts and authorities pompously announced, at a gala in the Casa Grande del Pueblo in La Paz, presidential headquarters, that the 2022 version of the celebration was confirmed.
Security, health, and tourism plans were then put in place, while thousands of dancers gathered again in squares and large halls in several cities to rehearse the dances of the folkloric parade.
The first “convite” or rehearsal street parade was scheduled for the first Sunday of November, as is traditional. It was to be replicated week after week to culminate in the tremendous Folkloric Entrance on Carnaval Saturday, February 26.
But the health uncertainty overcame the enthusiasm and forced the organizers to make a first cut of the festival, postponing the first convite until December 5.
FRUSTRATION
The first street rehearsal was again suspended, amid great controversy and with only three days of anticipation, leaving the dancers of Oruro, who were preparing to travel for the first Sunday of carnival in that mining city, literally with their hair in a twist.
“By a majority of institutions of the city, it has been responsibly decided, safeguarding the health of the population of Oruro, to suspend until January the first Carnival 2022,” announced the general secretary of the Municipality of Oruro, Romulo Alconz, on Thursday, December 2, after a meeting of municipal health, police, military, and tourism authorities.
The main actors of the festival, dancers and musicians, disagreed with the suspension and only accepted it the next day without hiding their anger. Sharing the criteria of the ACFO, the Departmental Federation of Professional Musicians Bands of Oruro (Fedbampo) warned that the postponement of the start of the carnival would bring severe economic damage.
“The authorities do not seem to understand that it is not just about dances. They are depriving us of fulfilling contracts with which we musicians hoped to finance our Christmas and year-end expenses; now everything will be a crisis in the sector,” lamented Juan Cruz, trumpet player of the Pagador band, on his social network accounts.
“Needless to say, what will happen to the hotels that already had many reservations for the treats, and even worse if it leads to suspend the whole carnival again. Total loss,” Cruz added.
Alconz said that the postponement of the start of the carnival is irrevocable and that for now, the January date is only a possibility, subject to the evolution of the pandemic.
“It is evident that there is discomfort on the part of some institutions that had been working on logistics and institutional organization issues, but we consider that health comes first, and from the reports, we know that the probability is high that the “convite” becomes an invitation for the entry of the fourth wave [of the pandemic] to the city of Oruro,” explained the municipal authority.
According to official reports, Bolivia is now under the fourth wave of Covid-19 infections, and Oruro has been the city least affected by new conditions.
The ACFO and Fedbampo proposed that only Oruro-based dancers participate in the pre-Carnival festivities, but this approach was insufficient to overcome the authorities’ fear of the new coronavirus variant.