The story
Fiesta del Gran Poder in La Paz
Gran Poder is La Paz's largest folkloric dance parade, built around devotion to the Cristo del Gran Poder and grown from a neighborhood procession into an entrada with well over a hundred costumed dance fraternities. Morenada, caporales, diablada and dozens of other dances fill the route for hours, backed by brass bands, in costumes that take a year of workshop labor to build.
Gran Poder began as a modest neighborhood procession in the Chijini area of La Paz in the early twentieth century, built around a devotional image of the Cristo del Gran Poder, and grew over the decades into one of the largest folkloric dance events in South America.