Carnaval & Condombe

Inaugural Parade

The Carnaval holiday season starts in Montevideo with the Inaugural Parade on 18 de Julio Avenue in January.

Las Llamadas Parade

Las Llamadas in February, is an enormous event that captures the heart of the city. All the local comparsas, groups of candombe drum performers, participate in a huge parade that takes place in the neighborhoods of Barrio Sur and Palermo. It is a spectacle unlike any other in the world where more than 2,000 drums can be heard playing at once.

This event is called Las Llamadas (the calls) because of its slave origins in the 18^th century - on the few days slaves were allowed to celebrate, different groups would “call” to each other with their drums. Throughout the event spectators can see the confluence of the African slave culture with European influences.

Candombe is a style of music and dance that originated in Uruguay among the descendants of liberated African slaves Candombe is a source of national pride and has been named an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.

Candombe drumming includes three kinds of drums that form a “cuerda” and each comparsa may have 50–100 drummers. In the Carnaval parades, members of the drummers often wear costumes that reflect the music's historical roots in the slave trade, such as sun hats, African-inspired costumes, and white performers using black face-paint. This is shocking to foreign visitors, however, within Uruguay it is considered an act of empathy for past atrocities and solidarity in the present.

During the parade, other performers are in front of the cuerda de tambores. Some of the special carnival characters that date back to Candombe’s humble beginnings. They include the Herb Doctor (El Gramillero) who wears a tophat and carries a cane, ‘The Old Mother’ (La Mama Vieja) who carries a fan, and a baton-spinning Broomsman (El Escobero)’. And of course, like other Carnaval celebrations, there are dancers wearing elaborate costumes.