Eric West

Bio

Eric West is a photographer and audio engineer living in Westchester, New York. He received his BA in Music at Hamilton College in 2004.

Reflection

There are many religious celebrations in Peru, but the Fiesta de la Virgen del Carmen is known as one of the most awe-inspiring and authentic festivals in Peru’s Sacred Valley. I was drawn to the participatory and interactive nature of the festival: the masked performers use the entire town as a stage set, often pulling in people from the crowd to join in the festivities.

Paucartambo has no hotels or inns, so visitors find boarding in local homes, or in our case, a local elementary school classroom. When it started raining on the second day, I assumed that the dancers and crowds would move inside, but the performances continued in the streets without any concern for the weather. This festival has a strict schedule that has been followed for centuries; it would take more than a downpour to halt the festivities.

This is a celebration that is experienced up close, and safety is not always a priority. Dancers, dressed as Yellow Fever-bearing mosquitoes, hit unsuspecting crowd members with yellow sandbags as they pass by; ritual clowns, called Maqt’as, use whips to clear the crowd to make openings for dancers to move through; in the evenings, troupe members run through the streets carrying large fireworks and jump over piles of burning wood, all just inches from onlookers.

The elaborate costumes, the fireworks, and the mountain setting were beautiful and amazing, but the intense devotion of the festival-goers made this festival stand out as a truly memorable experience.