Bogota's Carnival

Every year Bogotá’s Carnival is celebrated on August 5 and 6 for the anniversary of Hispanic foundation. Most of the events take place in Simon Bolivar Park, and on streets and squares of the city.

It is a celebration full of cultural diversity, where the residents are integrated in Bogotá, includes lively comparsas, orchestras, salsa dancers, more than 2 thousand artists of different musical genres. Bogotá revive its carnival in its anniversary.

It generally begins at 10:00pm from National Park to Bolivar Square, in honor to “Balcan spirit”, one of the main carnival’s protagonists and in charge of integrating the inhabitants in a celebration.

Carnival’s history

The first carnival’s celebration was in XXI century, in the 467 Bogotá’s anniversary called “The celebration of the diversity” and had a motto “Celebrate life and express yourself as you wish”.

The carnival was created according April 14, 2005 of the town hall. One of the main objectives of the carnival is reflecting and promoting the cultural and musical diversity of Colombia.

According Marcos Gonzáles historian, Bogotá was one of the first cities in the continent in celebrating its own carnival. In 1539, just one year after Hispanic foundation of the city, the Spanish Crown imposed the celebrations named Carnestolendas of Santa Fé de Bogotá. In 1561, the Indian chief of Ubaque was allowed to participate in celebrating the parties of his own culture (Muisca).

The modern celebrations of the carnival dates back to 1916, it began with a student election, the queen was Zea. In that time, she was in charged to open the celebration. Years after, the carnival grew in comparsas and beauty queens. In 1939, the mayor ship of Bogotá suspended the carnivals. Then, an attempt to revive the carnival in the year 1960 failed because of alcohol abuse and violence. In 2005, the carnival resurrected once with name of “Diversity carnival”, thanks to Luis Eduardo Garzón, mayor office. In 2007, the carnival was celebrated with the name of Carnival of Reconciliation.

Nowadays, the carnival is a great celebration, has been fortified, and has celebration, music and spectacular scenery. It wants to promote collective atmosphere to celebrate life, creative expression, and enjoyment for generating a feeling of equity, inclusion and recognition of all districts and cultures of the capital City of Colombia.

Activities

In the carnival there are several activities like:

Comparsas: Parades of folkloric groups that represent cultural manifestations of different regions of the country.

Verbenas: Celebrations on the suburbs, with dances, music, plays and gastronomy of different regions of the country.

Pre-carnival: Preparations for the carnival, events like street theatre fairs, puppets, story telling and so on.

Children’s Carnival: In October, there is a parade of the best winning comparsas by the streets that finish with a great cultural and artistic event.