Art and Literature

Interest—and excellence—in the arts has been slow to develop in Costa Rica. With its relatively small pre-Columbian population, the country had no powerful or unusual art forms that have sparked a creative synthesis where the modern and the traditional merge. Costa Rica's postcolonial development was benign, and the social tensions (often catalysts for artistic expression) experienced elsewhere in the isthmus were lacking.

In recent years, however, artists across the spectrum have found a new confidence and are dismissing rigid norms to experiment with new forms of paintings and sculptures. Exciting things are happening for a country long dismissed as a cultural backwater. The performing arts are flourishing. Artists are tearing free from a straitjacket of conformity. And the National Symphony Orchestra sets a high standard for other musical troupes to follow.

Art
The towns of Santa Ana and neighboring Escazú, immediately southwest of San José, have long been magnets for artists. Escazú in particular is home to many contemporary artists: Christina Fournier; the brothers Jorge, Manuel, Javier, and Carlos Mena; and Dinorah Bolandi, who was awarded the nation's top cultural prize. Many of Costa Rica's new breed of artists have won international acclaim. Isidro Con Wong, from Puntarenas, is known for a style of "magic realism," with works in permanent collections in several United States and French museums. Once a poor farmer, he started painting with his fingers and achiote, a red paste made from a seed.

The government-subsidized House of Arts helps sponsor art by offering free lessons in painting and sculpture. The Ministry of Culture sponsors art lessons and exhibits on Sundays in city parks. University art galleries, the Museo de Arte Costarricense, and the many smaller galleries scattered throughout San José exhibit works of all kinds. The Centro Creativo, opened in 1991 in Santa Ana, west of Escazú, offers courses and studio space for local and visiting artists.

Crafts
Many of the best crafts in Costa Rica come from Sarchí. Visitors are welcome to enter the fabricas de carretas and watch the families and master artists at work producing exquisitely contoured bowls, serving dishes, and—most notably—miniature versions of the carretas (oxcarts) for which the village is now famous worldwide. Although an occasional full-size oxcart is still made, today most of the carretas made in Sarchí are folding miniature trolleys—like little hot-dog stands—that serve as liquor bars or indoor tables, and half-size carts used as garden ornaments or simply to accent a corner of a home. The carts are painted in dazzling white or burning orange and decorated with geometric mandala designs and floral patterns that have found their way, too, onto wall plaques, kitchen trays, and other craft items. Sarchí and the Moravia suburb of San José are also noted for their leather satchels and purses.

Literature
The literature of modern Costa Rica still draws largely from the local setting, and though the theme of class struggle has given way to a lighter, more novelistic approach, it still largely lacks the mystical, surrealistic, Rabelaisian excesses, the endless layers of experience and meaning, and the wisdom, subtlety, and Romanticism of the best of Brazilian, Argentinean, and Colombian literature. An outstanding exception is Julieta Pinto's El Eco de los Pasos, a striking novel about the 1948 civil war.

Music and Dance
Ticos (Costa Ricans) love to dance. By night San José gets into its stride with discos hotter than the tropical night. On weekends rural folks flock to small-town dance halls, and the Ticos' celebrated reserve gives way to outrageously flirtatious dancing. Outside the dance hall, the young prefer to listen to British and American rock. When it comes to dancing, however, they prefer the hypnotic Latin and rhythmic Caribbean beat and bewildering cadences of cumbia, lambada, marcado, merengue, salsa, soca, and the Costa Rican swing, danced with sure-footed, erotic grace. On the Caribbean coast, music is African Caribbean in spirit and rhythm, punctuated by drums and banjos and accompanied by the cuadrille, a maypole dance in which participants hold one of many bright ribbons tied to the top of a pole and braid the ribbons as they move.

Guanacaste is the heartland of Costa Rican folkloric music and dancing. Here, pre-Columbian instruments such as the chirimia (oboe) and quijongo (a single-string bow with gourd resonator) are still used as backing for traditional Chorotega dances such as the Danza del Sol and Danza de la Luna. The more familiar Cambute and Botijuela Tamborito—kaleidoscopic, blurring flurries of frilly satin skirts accompanied by the tossing of scarves, a fanning of hats, and loud lusty yelps from the men—are usually performed on behalf of tourists rather than at local turnos (fiestas). The dances usually deal with the issues of enchanted lovers and are mostly based on the Spanish paseo, with maidens in white bodices and dazzlingly bright skirts circled by men in white suits and cowboy hats.

Theater
The streets of San José are dotted with tiny theaters—everything from comedy to drama, avant-garde, theater-in-the-round, mime, and even puppet theater, with shows every night Tuesday through Sunday. Performances are predominantly in Spanish, although some groups perform in English. The English-speaking Little Theater Group is Costa Rica's oldest theatrical troupe; it performs principally in the Centro Cultural's Eugene O'Neill Theater. The prices are so cheap—you could go once a week for a year for the same cost as a single Broadway production—that it's worth going even if your Spanish is poor. Theaters rarely hold more than 100 to 200 people and often sell out early. Shows normally begin at about 8 PM. The Tico Times and Costa Rica Today offer complete listings of current productions.