Guess who got to dance in an entrada this weekend! And in tinkus!

Entradas are epic parades of dance throughout the city that happen on occasions like Carnival and important saint days in Bolivia. Cochabamba has a third entrada put on annually by the university, where different schools and departments form dance “fraternities” and parade throughout the city.

I’ve longed to dance in an entrada – but I was out of the country for Carnival, working too hard in the weeks before the August Virgin of Urkupiña entrada, and had been in Argentina during the weeks before this entrada, my last chance. Looked hopeless, but three days before the entrada, my host sister Helen dragged me to the agriculture department, where a friend of a friend told us that we would find a very welcoming tinkus fraternity. We “learned” six different steps in those three days, rented our dresses, and became part of the group.

Tinku means “encounter” in Quechua, and the dance is based on a traditional form of controlled ritual fighting in the Potosí department of Bolivia. The dance is animated, very low to the ground, and extremely energetic.

The experience was amazing – I almost backed out at the last minute due to some nasty migraines and really really hot weather recently, but didn’t want to give up the chance. Luckily, we didn’t start parading until the sun was already going down. The leaders of the group signal which steps to do and the intensity by whistling, so we were pretty much moving the whole 3 kilometer route (felt much longer). The energy was amazing, both with the crowd along the route and the support of the other dancers. By far one of the most amazing things I’ve done here, despite the nasty blisters all over the bottom of my feet! This is what my feet looked like at the end of the night:

Here's some stage tinku to get an idea of the style: