Why we get wasted on New Year's

22.05.12

Soccer balls protuberance beneath the men’s polyester skirts and blouses to create exaggerated breasts and derrieres. Their masked faces are resplendent with rouge and eye sidekick, wild like plumage. Trumpet, trombone and tuba players garbed in maroon polyester suits cavort rousing banda, and the men shake their tousled pink and blond wigs. Their dance is a lewd, thrusting undertaking, accompanied by the glad-handed twirling of tuxedoed dance partners dressed as evil businessmen, who eye at the crowd with sinister rubber masks.

Incongruous on the stately town square of Dolores Hidalgo, Guanajuato, the baile is but one of many unexpected mini-fiestas we’ve encountered as we rove through Mexico during the winter holidays. The grotesque dance is a far cry from the yuletide tableaus we’ve come to expect in the U.S., but perhaps no less unconventional: adult men dressed as women with huge asses versus adult men dressed as “Christmas elves”? Who’s to say? Although I never found out correctly what the dance in Dolores Hidalgo signified, it is likely a holdover from the wild holiday traditions of elderly Europe and Mexico.

Source: Salon