Sardana

There is perhaps nothing more characteristicly Catalan than the sardana, the traditional dance. Wherever there are Catalans, there are sardanas.

The best opportunities to see sardanas are a village Festa Major, the Fosc de saint Joan (23rd June) or, in French Catalonia, the quatorze juillet celebrations. For an authentic sardana, choose a small to medium sized village rather than the tourist hotspots where sardanas may be staged as an attraction for the visitors rather than as a spontaneous expression of the Catalan spirit. If the dancers are in the traditional dress, it is almost certainly a show for the tourists. Authentic sardanas are danced by ordinary people in ordinary dress.

The music is provided by a cobla, a small group of musicians playing mainly brass instruments. Tambourines provide the rhythm. The flaviol, a small flute with a tone akin to that of the piccolo, gives these bands a characteristic high pitched sound. The dancers form a circle which gradually enlarges as more dancers join it. When it becomes too large for the space available, the circle may break into smaller ones or a another ring may form within the large one.

Včera bol sviatok sv. Eulálie, jednej z dvoch patróniek Barcelony. Prechádzali sme sa po starom meste a na jednom z námestí znela hudba. Po príchode bližšie sme zistili, že ľudia tam tancujú sardanas, typický katalánsky tanec, ktorý sa tancuje v kruhu, ľudia jednoducho prichádzajú, kladú svoje veci na zemi v strede kruhu (aby ich mali pod dohľadom), tancujú a keď majú dosť, tak vezmu svoje veci a idú ďalej. Bola som uchvátená predovšetkým tou nestrojenosťou, tým, že ľudia idúci z práce sa zastavovali, tancovali a potom išli ďalej, nabití obrovskou dávkou pozitívnej energie. Sardana je najpozitívnejší tanec, aký som doteraz videla. Doslova nabíja energiou. Fotky sú len z mobilu a v noci, takže skôr budú slúžiť len ako maličké doplnenie, než na potešenie očí :)