By Vincent Rodriguez, Chris Fullam
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SANTA FE, New Mexico (KOAT) — It’s a community spectacle filled with fun, excitement and renewal.
For over a century, Old Man Gloom has been giving people all over the world a needed emotional release.
Zozobra has given many a new and fresh start after seeing their worries and troubles burn away.
It’s a tradition that’s become embedded into New Mexico’s culture. It’s an idea — a story — that’s credited to one man with the aspiration and vision to create a new and different type of canvas.
The man behind Zozobra? Will Shuster.
Nov. 26, 1893, a time when one man who would make an enormous impact on New Mexico’s culture was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
William Shuster was the second of three children. As the middle child of the family, he was often mischievous and getting into trouble.
He was always finding ways to experiment with things, especially fire.
As Shuster grew up, he took an interest in invention. While studying electrical engineering, he began to develop an interest in art.
Soon after, the world began changing. The United States entered World War I. The country quickly mobilized, and the Selective Service Act was passed by Congress in 1917. All men between 21 and 30 were required to register for the draft.
Fearing he would be selected in the draft, then-23-year-old Shuster applied and was selected for officer school. He was accepted, trained and sent to France. He served as a first lieutenant and saw action at Meuse-Argonne, one of the deadliest campaigns in history. More than 26,000 were killed, and 120,000 were injured, including Shuster.
Two-thirds of Shuster’s lungs were damaged by mustard gas that was deployed by the German army. He was sent back to Philadelphia in May 1919. Doctors told him he had tuberculosis and had only one year to live.
Following doctors’ advice, Shuster packed up and moved to New Mexico. He arrived in 1920 and went to one of the state’s first sanatoriums.
While rest was required as a treatment for TB, Shuster was stubborn and went on hikes in the foothills instead of resting. Shuster would recover well from TB.
During his time in New Mexico, Shuster met a well-known artist and began creating and developing art. Shuster, along with Fremont Ellis, Walter Mruk, Jozef Bakos, and Willard Nash, formed Santa Fe’s first art collective, Los Cinco Pintores.
The collective built adobe homes southeast of the Plaza. But, there was one problem: They were broke. The collective would go years without selling a painting. In his diary, Shuster wrote that working together was about survival. When one sold a painting, they would all share the profits.
Then, just before Christmas 1923, a big sale happened. That led to a big celebration. The group went to La Fonda and had a proper Christmas Eve dinner. But Shuster noticed that everyone seemed down. He didn’t like that feeling, he wanted that dinner to be a big celebration.
The collective built adobe homes southeast of the Plaza. But, there was one problem: They were broke. The collective would go years without selling a painting. In his diary, Shuster wrote that working together was about survival. When one sold a painting, they would all share the profits.
Then, just before Christmas 1923, a big sale happened. That led to a big celebration. The group went to La Fonda and had a proper Christmas Eve dinner. But Shuster noticed that everyone seemed down. He didn’t like that feeling, he wanted that dinner to be a big celebration.
A few months after the burning of the group’s glooms, Shuster took a trip to Mexico, where he attended a Good Friday celebration hosted by the Yaqui people.
One of the things he saw, according to Zozobra officials, was that the town created a 5-foot figure of Judas. The townspeople paraded it through town. People spit at it, threw shoes at it, and it ultimately burned in the town square.
When Shuster returned to Santa Fe, he decided he could marry the two ideas together. One is by burning glooms and by doing it in something that the community all decides is something they don’t like.
However, Shuster didn’t want it to be political or religious. He also needed a time and place where the burning would take place. So, he went to the Santa Fe Fiesta Council and proposed the idea of the burning. They said no.
Annoyed and angry that the fiesta council denied his request to burn his monster, Shuster decided to hold the burning in his backyard. The first puppet was 6 feet tall and was named “Old Man Groucher.” Dozens of artists showed up to the first burning, and it was popular.
In 1925, the puppet was burned again. So many people came to watch that the burning was hard to see. That’s when they knew the burning had to go public. While wanting to stay away from the religious themes of the Santa Fe Fiesta, Shuster began organizing a separate event for the burning. But they needed a better name than “Old Man Groucher.”
Shuster went to a friend, Dana Johnson, for help coming up with a new name. As Johnson and Shuster were looking at an old Spanish dictionary, they saw the word “zozobra,” which means to shipwreck or to be gloomy.
On Sept. 3, 1926, the first public burning of Zozobra was held behind Santa Fe City Hall.
The event became so popular that the Santa Fe Fiesta Council invited and incorporated Zozobra to start the fiestas.
Zozobra’s popularity was growing fast after burning for six years. At the time, the celebration was quick and didn’t have the meaning that it has today. Shuster took this to heart. It was a time of gloom for our country, the Great Depression. The stock market crashed, people flooded banks demanding their money, and the economy hit rock bottom.
People were struggling everywhere, including Shuster. He wrote to a friend and said, “Yesterday, I had to tell the light company to turn the electricity off and that I would use kerosene lamps.”
In the 1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt started the “New Deal” to help get Americans back to work. Shuster got involved in these programs while struggling to make ends meet. He painted murals at Carlsbad Caverns and produced a series of Frescos at the New Mexico Museum of Art.
Shuster was also involved in other public works projects in the area, including the construction of Fort Marcy Park in Santa Fe.
While looking at Fort Marcy Park, that’s when he decided to move Zozobra to the park. The burning has stayed there ever since.
When Zozobra was moved in the 1930s, the nation was still in a period of gloom. Shuster knew Zozobra would provide relief during the dark times. With the help of the Santa Fe New Mexican and numerous friends, they came up with an outlandish story of a monster rampaging the countryside to eventually be captured and brought back into Santa Fe to be burned.
But that wasn’t the only thing. Shuster thought something was missing. Through their stories, Shuster and the New Mexican’s editor, Dana Johnson, developed the myth into a spectacle that happens before Zozobra is burned each year.
Zozobra is in hiding in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains because he’s causing mischief among the public. To lure him out of hiding, the town invites him to a party held in his honor during the Santa Fe Fiestas. Zozobra accepts the invitation.
When he arrives in Santa Fe, Zozobra begins to wreak havoc in the town. Using his powers, he thrusts the city into darkness. He takes Santa Fe’s kids away, turning them into his little minions, devoid of any kind of hope.
Soon after, the town rises up with pitchforks and torches and reclaims the children. Zozobra then gets angry and scares the townspeople away.
Just as Zozobra was fed with misdeeds and gloom, the fire spirit appears. The fire spirit feeds off of the positive energy of humans when we’re selfless and good to one another. Because the energy came so quickly, the fire spirit is only 5 feet tall. So small compared to Zozobra’s towering 50 feet from consuming negativity for a whole year.
Through goodness and positive energy, the fire dancer defeats Zozobra and burns everyone’s glooms away.
While the story of Zozobra is an exciting and active tale, trying to tell that story came with some challenges.
Shuster went to Jacques Cartier, a famous ballet dancer from New York who moved to Tesuque, New Mexico, to ask him to dance in front of Zozobra as he burned. Cartier declined Shuster’s request. Shuster invites Cartier to the construction and tells Cartier he has the opportunity to create what the roles are. Cartier again declines but attends Zozobra incognito.
After seeing the burning of Zozobra, Cartier approaches Shuster and agrees to perform. Cartier began writing what he called the “Pageant of Gloom and Joy” to incorporate into the burning of Zozobra.
Cartier fashioned a costume together and created the iconic fire dancer’s hat. He also developed a choreography to symbolize the battle of good versus evil. In 1939, Cartier danced in front of Zozobra for the first time. He became the longest fire dancer in the history of the burning, passing the torch in 1970 to Chip Lilienthal.
After more than 30 years of being the fire dancer, Lilienthal’s daughter took the role. She stepped down a few years later.
Now, Helene Luna is the fourth fire dancer. She took the stage in 2007 to burn away everyone’s glooms.
Another part of the presentation is Zozobra’s voice.
In the early years of Zozobra, he didn’t make a sound as he was burning. His head was moving, his arms were moving, but it was quiet. One year, someone in the crowd started yelling out and making sounds of moaning in pain. This led to a great idea.
After that, Shuster decided to play a recording of a lion in a continuous loop. Someone later told Shuster that the voice doesn’t go right because it’s the roar of a lion. So when the fire spirit came out, the same tone and emotion were played throughout all parts of the burning, so there was a disconnect.
Shuster took that criticism to heart and knew a real voice was needed to interact with the fire spirit and with the crowd. That’s when a human voice was added to the presentation.
Today, Zozobra is voiced by Bill Parnall.
Through those interactive growls, the story gets told much better. One example is when Zozobra gives a happier growl when he sees his minions coming to him.
Those minions are called gloomies.
The gloomies have historically been played by kids in Santa Fe, but are now portrayed by the New Mexico Ballet Company. This allows for the gloomies to make the presentation bigger and better each year. The choreographer works with people of all ages to create the pageantry seen on stage every year. The gloomies dance until they’re scared away from Zozobra.
Not long after, the fire spirit is summoned and a fireworks show begins. The fireworks symbolize the fight between good and evil where the fire dancer takes charge. Each firework that goes up causes Zozobra to lose more energy to allow the fire dancer to take more control and defeat Zozobra.
Once Zozobra burns to ashes, the Fiestas song is played. That symbolizes a new year for Santa Fe.
The main part of the tradition of Zozobra is burning the gloom away. That tradition started at the table at La Fonda.
The act of burning glooms has changed from the tabletop burning to packing thousands of glooms inside of the puppet that is Zozobra.
Glooms are pre-submitted and some written down the evening Old Man Gloom burns. Some even drop off items like photos, divorce papers, letters and other documents. Some have taken mammogram scans to burn after beating breast cancer.
Seeing those glooms go up in flames with Zozobra is a release, a new start, a fresh breath of air that many hope for.
Today, Zozobra is a well-known figure in the community. The deep meaning of the tradition is something Shuster wanted to keep true to New Mexico. He was proud of the creation.
As Shuster grew older, he was unable to construct Zozobra by himself, so he got help from others. During that time, Shuster wanted to reflect on his creation and everything it represented. He did so in 1964 by painting a mural at the El Nido Restaurant in Tesuque.
That same year, Shuster had a heart attack. He wanted his creation to be cared for in a way that was different than the Santa Fe Fiesta Council could. Kiwanis Club member Harold Gans approached Shuster with the promise that the club would build a Will Shuster Zozobra in perpetuity. Shuster passed the rights to his creation and the secrets that go with Zozobra, knowing the tradition would be preserved long past his lifetime.
It’s a tradition that the Kiwanis Club of Santa Fe has helped preserve that lives within the lifeblood of the community. It’s a tradition that’s truly New Mexican.
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