The Devils of Yare

Awarded Fotoii Essay 2007

STATEMENT

This worki 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. 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. Some may regard the participants of these symbolic rituals as "primitive" and "unconscious" beings. Hardly so, in contrast, most of us living in the civilized world do so as automatons filled with unquestioned primitive beliefs. All in all, people are "invariant in time", all that really changes are the masks. And so, the apparent contrast vanishes. My experience while photographing Los Diablos de Yare made clear to me the mystery of their authenticity and the rich psychological inner world. In the cadence of the drums, the hot and humid weather, the calmness in motion and the authentic inner peace behind the masks, we get a glimpse of the festival's profound meaning and deep roots. Ricardo Báez-Duarte

Publishing Date 2006 / 10 / 31