{"id":4795,"date":"2017-01-03T20:38:03","date_gmt":"2017-01-03T20:38:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.masksoftheworld.com\/blog\/?p=4795"},"modified":"2017-01-04T14:57:28","modified_gmt":"2017-01-04T14:57:28","slug":"the-evolution-of-masquerade-in-guatemala","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/masksoftheworld.com\/blog\/the-evolution-of-masquerade-in-guatemala\/","title":{"rendered":"The evolution of masquerade in Guatemala"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Most of the world’s folk art continues to evolve. I asked Aaron about the way Guatemalan masks have changed over the last 35 years. Here is what he said.<\/p>\n

If anything dramatically illustrates the changing traditions, I\u2019d say it was the convites masks.\u00a0 The convite tradition goes back to medieval Europe and represents a relatively popular celebration of a local saint.\u00a0 I say \u201cpopular\u201d in contrast to other dances, which typically involve heavily rehearsed dances by persons who spend quite a lot on buying or renting costumes from a morer\u00eda.\u00a0 The elaborate costumes and masks for the Baile del Torito or Baile de la Conquista, for example, cost about 3 or 4 months\u2019 worth of wages for the average Guatemalan.\u00a0 In contrast, the convites typically make their own masks and costumes, and there is no orthodoxy for how they should look.<\/p>\n

You saw my plastic convite mask from the 1960s.\u00a0 Only 10 years earlier, the masks would all have been made from wood or linen soaked in plaster (see the attached archival photo of Momostenango in 1963).\u00a0 By the 1960s, everything had begun to change.\u00a0 My mask isn\u2019t the only one made out of plastic in Cob\u00e1n from that era.\u00a0 All the masks were, and each dancer hand-decorated it according to his taste (usually very crudely\u2014believe it or not, mine is the least crude of the masks from that time and place). The 1960s appears to have been a turning point.\u00a0 By the late 1960s, the convite had begun evolving in response to television and movies. More and more masks represented Disney, Looney Toons, and Hannah Barbara characters.\u00a0 Wood gradually fell out of favor as too expensive and requiring too much skill, and the dancers began using their (and their family\u2019s) considerable expertise in needlework to sew fabric masks and costumes.\u00a0 They now even attach LED lights to their costumes, the same way that Austrian Perchtenlauf masqueraders use LED lights on their Krampuses.\u00a0 The attached photo shows the modern Baile de los Convites in Chichicastenango, which is one of many shots I took this year.\u00a0 Wood to crude plastic to giant fabric costumes with LED lights.\u00a0 That\u2019s a fast evolution.\u00a0 Aaron, 1080\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Save<\/span><\/p>\n

Save<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most of the world’s folk art continues to evolve. I asked Aaron about the way Guatemalan masks have changed over the last 35 years. Here is what he said. If anything dramatically illustrates the changing traditions, I\u2019d say it was the convites masks.\u00a0 The convite tradition goes back to medieval Europe and represents a relatively popular celebration of a local saint.\u00a0 I say \u201cpopular\u201d in contrast to other dances, which typically involve heavily rehearsed dances by persons who spend quite a lot on buying or renting costumes from a morer\u00eda.\u00a0 The elaborate costumes and masks for the Baile del Torito or Baile de la Conquista, for example, cost about 3 or 4 months\u2019 worth of wages for the average Guatemalan.\u00a0 In contrast, the convites typically make their own masks and costumes, and there is no orthodoxy for how they should look. You saw my plastic convite mask from the 1960s.\u00a0 Only 10 years earlier, the masks would all have been made from wood or linen soaked in plaster (see the attached archival photo of Momostenango in 1963).\u00a0 By the 1960s, everything had begun to change.\u00a0 My mask isn\u2019t the only one made out of plastic in Cob\u00e1n from that era.\u00a0 All the masks were, and each dancer hand-decorated it according to his taste (usually very crudely\u2014believe it or not, mine is the least crude of the masks from that time and place). The 1960s appears to have been a turning point.\u00a0 By the late 1960s, the convite had begun evolving in response to television and movies. More and more masks represented Disney, Looney Toons, and Hannah Barbara characters.\u00a0 Wood gradually fell out of favor as too expensive and requiring too much skill, and the dancers began using their (and their family\u2019s) considerable expertise in needlework to sew fabric masks and costumes.\u00a0 They now even attach LED lights to their costumes, the same way that Austrian Perchtenlauf masqueraders use LED lights on their Krampuses.\u00a0 The attached photo shows the modern Baile de los Convites in Chichicastenango, which is one of many shots I took this year.\u00a0 Wood to crude plastic to giant fabric costumes with LED lights.\u00a0 That\u2019s a fast evolution.\u00a0 Aaron, 1080 Save Save<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4796,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guatemala"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/masksoftheworld.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/masksoftheworld.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/masksoftheworld.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/masksoftheworld.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/masksoftheworld.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4795"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/masksoftheworld.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4802,"href":"https:\/\/masksoftheworld.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4795\/revisions\/4802"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/masksoftheworld.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/masksoftheworld.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/masksoftheworld.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/masksoftheworld.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}