Performers

One part of the comparsa are the cuerda and the drums. They can also function individually, but in an organized comparsa they build one of three main sections.

First comes the estandarte. It is a banner that displays information on the group such as name, year and neighborhood affiliation. After the banner come several colorful flags followed by three trophies, a half moon, and two stars.

The second section is called cuerpo de baile (body of dance). First comes a group of dancers performing routines (45). After that come the three main characters that have participated the longest in Candombe, probably already in the original Candombes (Portal Candombe, Montaño, 2010): the gramillero, the mama vieja and the escobero (45). Their roles are as follows:

GRAMILLERO: He represents an old medicine man, bent over from age, sometimes with a doctor’s bag, dancing a stuttering dance using a cane. He wears an old frock coat, a hat, often glasses and has a beard. In his performances it seems like the old age tears him down only to shake of his yoke periodically and dance frantically in ritual states of trance (Montaño 2007, 16).

For Montaño she represents wisdom and old age, a mother, a grandmother. She is the queen of the comparsa and represents the former queens in the salas de nación (Portal Candombe, Montaño, 2010). He traces her character back to her historic role in Montevideo society:

“En el pasado era "ama de leche", lavandera, pastelera, costurera y desempeñaba otros mil oficios. Cada pueblo africano "trasladó" su bagaje cultural, y si bien no trajeron libros ni elementos materiales, sí transmitieron, por ejemplo, a través de las mujeres-madres una cultura tradicional africana muy diferente a la europeizada. Aquí es importante destacar el papel desempeñado por las "ayas" o "nodrizas" quienes, junto con la leche de sus pechos, les fueron traspasando a esos pequeños niños blancos sus cantos, mitos y arrullos, así como la mística de la cultura africana con sus tradiciones y su religiosidad.” [In the past she was a wet nurse, launderer, pastry maker, seamstress and had a thousand different jobs. Each African people “moved” their cultural knowledge. Although they did not bring books or other material elements, they did transmit, for example through the women-mothers, a traditional African culture very different to the European. Therefore, it is important to emphasize the role that the “ayas” or “nodrizas” played. Along with the milk from their breasts, they transferred their songs, myths, lullabies, and the mystique of the African culture with their traditions and religiousness to those little white children.] (Portal Candombe, Montaño, 2010)

ESCOBERO: He is a brooms man, a skilled acrobatic dancer who performs acts juggling and balancing his broom. He embodies strength and youth through his “warrior-like figure” (Sutton 45). He animates the comparsa members. The escobero would confront other escoberos from different comparsas and challenge them. The escobero that did not lose his broom nor rhythm while dancing, but accomplished to do such to his opponent, won. Everything was allowed from pushing to tripping (Portal Candombe, Montaño, 2010).

Together with the mama vieja the vedette used to be the only female main characters in the comparsas. Afro-Uruguayan women had long avoided to participate in carnival celebrations to avoid the categorization of “black female sexuality” and “sexual looseness” (82). These stereotypes were so strong in Montevideo’s society in the second half of the twentieth century that many Afro-Uruguayan families would not allow their daughters to dance in a comparsa (82 ff). Today, critics say that a comparsa’s success is directly connected to their vedette’s performance and attractiveness (Chirimini 267).

Until the 2000s comparsa drumming was almost entirely a male occupation. It has been in the last years that more women joined the cuerdas to play the drums and that even some female comparsas were founded, but female drummers remain a minority (La Melaza, 2015).

From the Candombe characteristics listed above we can see that many of them still root in African-descended practices. Although characters like the vedette were added to the comparsa to gain popular success, the old characters, like the mama vieja, were preserved until today.

MAMA VIEJA: She is the matron of Candombe and the Gramillero’s mate. She wears a simple dress and a white head band and always carries a fan and/or an umbrella. She was one of the first female characters in the Candombe performance. Andrews traces her first appearance back to the end of the nineteenth century, beginning of the twentieth century when she was incorporated by the working-class comparsas. He speculates that

“the mama vieja expressed a specifically “black” form of power; indeed, several forms of power. She was the Black mother who cared for, nourished, and raised white and black children alike. She was the trusted servant and domestic manager responsible for the smooth operation of upper- and middle-class Montevidean homes. And in some cases (we cannot know how many) she was the mistress or sexual initiator of the male members of elite families.” (Andrews 65)

As with the mama vieja, the gramillero, the escobero as well as probably the banners and the trophies can be traced back to the original Candombe of colonial times by scholars like Montaño or Chirimini. They root these characters partly also back to African and African American traditions (Chirimini 267).

THE VEDETTE: The vedette closes the cuerpo de baile. She is positioned in front of the first line of drummers dressed sexually overtly (Sutton 47). Her character has no direct connection to African or Afro-Uruguayan past (Andrews 79).

“Rather, as her name suggests, the vedette was imported from France and modeled on the showgirls of Parisian musical reviews (with, again, a strong admixture of Josephine Baker [American-born French dancer, singer, and actress]). Dressed in plumes, high heels, and a revealing swimsuit-style costume, she is the featured female dancer of the group and an overt expression of black female sexuality.” (79)

The most famous vedettes were Martha Gularte and Rosa Luna, both of African descent. Although obviously not related to African tradition or past, the vedette was quickly associated with African rhythm, sensuality, African blood. Until the 1980s vedettes were almost entirely of Afro-Uruguayan descent (81).