“You can dress up as anything you like, but I wouldn’t recommend a onesie,” says Mateo Martínez, chairman of Latitud. “We will dance a lot, so a onesie will be very hot. If you wear nice clothes, it’s fine. Some people will dress up in traditional carnival clothing, for example as the Marimonda, an elephant mask.”
Second largest carnival
The origins of the Barranquilla carnival is largely unknown, but it was the first holiday for slaves. The first time it was held was in 1888 in Barranquilla, Colombia. It is now the second largest carnival in the world, just behind Brazil’s carnival. Brazil’s carnival focusses more on women and flowers while in Barranquilla it’s more about the traditional dances and dresses. The carnival there is held on the four days before Ash Wednesday, this year it was from February 10th to 13th. “Everyone parties on those four days, nobody works.”
Why does Latitud celebrate it a month later? “We didn’t celebrate it in February this year because of the exams,” says Martínez. “We chose the earliest date after the exams. Carnival is a good theme for a party.” Martínez expects 200 people to show up.
Don’t be scared to dance
Latitud invited the band El Último Mambo from Groover to play typical Caribbean music. The party-goers will dance to salsa, reggaetón and merengue. “We’ve seen that not everyone can dance to our music, so we will have ‘ask me to dance’ teachers. The people wearing bands can show you how to dance to the music. Most of the dances will be in pairs, but we will also have hora loca, ‘crazy hour’, where the DJ plays the best music, the lights flash like crazy and everyone dances very intensely.”
The party will be held in the Flora theatre at 22:00 on Saturday. Tickets are 5 euros for members and 7 euros for others and can be bought via the Facebook event.
Can’t you get enough of dressing up and carnival? Kriminele, the DSC’s carnival, will be held from March 20 to 23.
Roos van Tongeren / Redacteur
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