Spontaneous Street Dance and el Desfile de Orgullo Gay

They say that dancing is in the Latin American blood. And it shows. You will inevitably stumble upon groups of dancers doing anything from milongos to cielitos to chacareras to gatos escondidos to breakdancing with a football. You´ll see people busting a move in most plazas, at any time of the day or night.

To celebrate the myriad of dancing styles and events, the University recently held a fair to promote different types of Bolivian folk dance. At the very least, it was an excuse to show off some gorgeous traditional costumes.

No dance is complete without good music and the guitarrists joined the bandwagon.

However, costumes are not only used to celebrate the past but also to "concientizar" (raise awareness) about contemporary issues. The Gay Parade is a perfect example and the riot of music and colours made the GBLT  (LGBT in English) cause impossible to ignore. 

This annual event is particularly important in Latin America, where machismo is still strong and homophobia is common. According the the GBLT website, homophobic discrimination, including namecalling and physical attacks, are a daily occurence so that fact that hundreds of people turned out to support gay, lesbian and transvestite rights represents a milestone in sexual and homosexual equality.

Just this April, the first gay marriage took place in Buenos Aires (although it was foreigners who got married not Argentinians) and Bolivian GBLT activists are hopeful that the bill for homosexual marriage in Bolivia will eventually be passed. Señor Presidente, Evo Morales, supported the march and was seen on stage at the end of the Parade. You can´t see him in this photo but I promise he was there!

Having explained the importance of gay rights, Escarlin invited me to join the parade and support her gay brother, Aldair. We danced along El Prado for over an hour in our pink "libertad" T-shirts, with multicoloured joker hats and colourful GBLT flags.

^That´s Eskarlin

Other marchers were even more eccentric and extroverted with their appearance. The aim was to challenge the taboo of being gay by being as outrageous as possible and we saw a variety of angel and devil costumes, fantasy butterflies and floats of coloured balloons to symbolize acceptance, hope and freedom.

^And here´s Aldair

The following quote sums up the spirit of the evening:

Anyways, Love is Love

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