Chiquitania, the bolivian far east { 44 images } Created 4 Jul 2012
Bolivia is not only La Paz, Potosi, altiplane and "gringo trail". So far away, in the middle of the eastern plane there is an area called Chiquitania, that is part of UNESCO World Heritage. It's consist in seven villages roughly at 70 km of distance between them. They are old jesuit missions, it's a story of 300 years ago: a swiss Jesuit father Martin Schmidt was leading a journey to evangelize the inhabitants of this area. Instead to impose by force the catholic religion they interact with them, discovering their attitude for the music and the craftwork of wood.
Thanks to this pacific encounter they exchange experiences and know how, they build the churches in an original style, they create local Baroque music.
The story tell us that all de jesuits was kicked out from Spanish Empire approximately in 1767. The missions still forbidden for more than 200 years until their rediscover by another swiss people. Architect Hans Roth than start, during the seventies, a big work to restoration.
Nowadays the missions have retake their ancient splendor and all the villages have their own baroque chorus and orchestra and also many laboratories of wood craftwork generally especialized in restoration of churches etc...
Thanks to this pacific encounter they exchange experiences and know how, they build the churches in an original style, they create local Baroque music.
The story tell us that all de jesuits was kicked out from Spanish Empire approximately in 1767. The missions still forbidden for more than 200 years until their rediscover by another swiss people. Architect Hans Roth than start, during the seventies, a big work to restoration.
Nowadays the missions have retake their ancient splendor and all the villages have their own baroque chorus and orchestra and also many laboratories of wood craftwork generally especialized in restoration of churches etc...
