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Dancing Devils: The Morality Play of Yare, Venezuela
| Article
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19197 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
7 / 1991 |
2,556 Words |
| Author
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Edward Holland
Edward Holland is a free-lance journalist based in Caracas,
Venezuela. |
Once a year, on Corpus Christi Day, evil runs amok in San Francisco de Yare, Venezuela: Dancing "devils" take to the streets to play out an epic struggle against the forces of good. Although they inevitably lose the battle, the dancing devils turn in a performance that would make a Hollywood exorcism look tame by comparison.
On most days of the year, San Francisco de Yare is indistinguishable from the other small towns scattered across the lush, humid countryside of north-central Venezuela. A whitewashed Spanish colonial church dominates a neat, treelined central plaza, and well before dawn, residents make their way to work in the nearby factories that long ago replaced the region's plantation economy.
But on Corpus Christi Day, the first Thursday after Trinity Sunday, the dancing devils romp through the town, keeping alive a centuries-old tradition that combines the religious rites of medieval Spain with the rhythms of West Africa.
For the expectant crowds who throng the Plaza Bolivar to witness the ritual, the event begins with a rhythmic hiss of maracas in the distance, like a plague of approaching cicadas in syncopation. As the marchers draw closer, the shuffle of dancing feet can be heard against the backbeat of a single drum.
Suddenly, a column of devils turns the corner and enters the plaza, setting the street aflame in a burst of color made more intense by the tropical sun. Hundreds of men in fiery red pajamas and grotesque horned masks dance their way to the town's cathedral, behind a banner that proclaims: Society of the Dancing Devils of Yare.
The devils' dance is a morality play with a beat, a frenetic portrayal of good's triumph over evil. But in recent years, it has turned into a battle between the sacred and the profane, as the organizers struggle to keep the festival from degenerating into a raucous tourist event.
"This is something sacred, not only for me, but for the entire town," says Manuel Sanoja, fifty-three, the segundo capataz (second overseer) of the dancing devils' society. For more than forty years, Sanoja has taken part in the Corpus Christi Day celebrations. As second in command, he is responsible for directing the dance.
Sanoja is known as El Mocho ("the stub-fingered one") because he lost four fingers of his
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