Muchos Festivales!

Buenos Aires is the biggest city either of us have ever lived in, and with around 13 million people living in the metro-area, there are always a ton of of interesting things going on. One of the coolest things about Buenos Aires is all the festivals that are put on throughout the year by the city's Ministerio de Cultura (Ministry of Culture). Since January, they have organized three huge festivals. One of them, Aires Buenos Aires, was a summer festival with all sorts of activities including concerts, dance shows, circus shows, exercise classes, movies, poetry and theater. Amazingly, the whole festival was completely free! One of our favorite shows included aerial tango dancing, which meant that throughout the show various tango dancers had giant bungee-like cords attached to themselves to they would dance horizontally on walls or be bounced around from the floor so they nearly flew for a few moments. Here's a clip from the show:



In April, an independent international film festival, BAFICI, took place. It included many free films, and the ones that cost anything were in general half to a third of the price of most regular theaters! And one of the coolest parts of the festival was that there were several open-air screenings, like this one:



Most recently, the city hosted Circo Polo, an international circus festival from the end of April through the beginning of May. About half the shows were free and those that cost money were very affordable for the level of talent that was performing. The festival also included many lectures about the history of the circus in Argentina, the troupes that were performing, and circus schools around the world. There were several circus tents set up in a park with a lot of open space, but we went went to a couple of really impressive (cirque du soleil-esque) shows that were held outside. At one of the opening shows there was a giant metal spider-like structure, and several aerial artists ziplined into it from nearby buildings. They all wore bright white outfits that were meant to resemble angels. Here is some video from that show:



A week later in the circus festival they had a special show in honor of Argentina's Bicentennial. It took place in Plaza San Martin. The show was made up of the same angel-like zipliners who had been in the opening show, but this time they were coming from much higher and performing above a much larger crowd. As they came in they'd drop a lot of feathers on the crowd below, and the visual effect and along with the music were beautiful together. The night sky made it difficult to see the zip lines so it really looked as though they were floating and flying above us. The crowd of people, kids and adults alike, had so much fun playing in the feathers that after the show, they stuck around having "feather-ball fights" and breaking into dance. Here is some video from that evening:



It's exciting to think the city will be hosting 6 other big festivals this year that should be just as entertaining. The level of entertainment that these festivals provide for free is really impressive, and it's interesting to think about what projects the government funds. You can go into beautiful old public buildings here that are falling apart and lack toilet paper or paper towels, or walk down streets where the sidewalks are completely broken, but the city still manages to hold high-quality public events for it's citizens. Besides the 9 major festivals the city government hosts, it also substantially subsidizes many other festivals. From the end of April to the beginning of May one of those festivals included a giant book fair, which was so big we weren't able to see it all in one trip and actually went three times! Here are some photos from the Feria Internacional del Libro.