p a u c a r t a m b o (oh yes, it happened)

so last week we did our paucartambo presentation:

day 1:
we were all qollas except for hannarella (she was the very believable chola, blonde and everything.) and bebenorme (he was the bull) and what surprised me the most was how good it actually was, i think this is why in paucartambo they don't rehearse per se (they do have extensive training since they are children) so that the day of the performance they can improvise and be more alert, more energetic, basically what kept going through my mind was DO NOT stop, just don't. therefore the energy in our performance does not die, because, afterall this performance is nothing without energy, and even though i wasn't feeling very well (yes, this is an understatement) i still gave it my all and just forgot about my condition, this leads me to think about actors and what they're supposed to to do: THEIR JOBS, act, doesn't matter if you're dying, if you're dead, if you're pooping all the time, when you get on stage you are no longer you, you are a character with no connection whatsoever to your former "real" self because in the end, the audience doesn't care about your problems, they care about being entertained because that is what theatre is for to them, for entertainment and if you stop acting, the reality of a performance breaks and thus it is ruined. ok, in western theatre sometimes there is an understudy but in andean theatre, there isn't, actors just deal with things and something as simple as touching your mask to just plain stopping obliterates any chances a performance had to be successful.
another very helpful element is the actual audience, their energy and just the fact that they're there changes the performance so much, our energy level rises because instead of interacting with air during rehearsals we actually interact with other people so this is another reason why actors in paucartambo do not rehearse so much.
as far as my job with props goes, i think more candy would have been nice so that the hype of candy falling from the sky didn't die off so quickly.

day 2:
carlos and i were saqras, the first problem was the costume that apparently was wrong for me to bring the white socks we agreed on, however, it isn't about me nor pineda, it's about the performance as a whole and about how, if we don't get organized and talk as a group (because this is not a self directed one man show) the performance goes all kablooey so again i come to the resolution that the play is not for the actors, or for one person in particular, it's a collective effort for the people who come to see it, whether we want to admit it or not.
in terms of acting, i think we were good, however there were moments that i felt were not as appreciated by the audience as we would have liked since the qollas were kinda stealin' our fantabulous saqra thunder, however in the actual festival the qollas and all the other comparsas were each doing their own thing and each got equal attention. mainly because of:
the shape of the "stage" (the plaza and other places in the town allows people all around to get to see the moving comparsas)
the amount of saqras (we only had two and over 5 hyperactive qollas, unfair much? so as much as the energy level has to be high and the interaction has to be great, there still needs to be the respect for the main action of the play, whether it is about the qollas or the saqras in our case.
i think the music elevated our performance to the next level, it gave it that paucartambo feel.

however, what i took from both days of performance led me to wonder about our rehearsal times, and how in paucartambo they don't rehearse a lot yet are taught since they are children, is it possible that we were late? and the only way to capture the paucartambo spirit and overall performance is by training for over 15 years? and if so, this led me to think about acting itself and how different people from different cultures have their own ways of acting and of theatre itself, is it possible to TRULY learn and be able to perform these traditions as if we were born into them? and overall, can you then "learn" how to act?