Javier Silva Meinel

This photograph was taken in Paucartambo, Peru, at the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, an annual three-day festival honoring the Virgin Mary, celebrated since colonial times. Festivities include a mix of pre-Columbian Andean ceremonies and Catholic traditions, with troupes of masked dancers re-enacting traditional stories and historic events in a stylized battle of good and evil.

Here Meinel pictures one of these festival troupes, the Waca Wacas or Bulls. By taking the dancers out of the context of the village streets and re-staging them inside his studio, Meinel raises questions about the relationship between ancient indigenous and contemporary traditions.