Traditions

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Traditions

Every town in Spain has its Patron Saint, adding an important festival to the annual calander. Most of the towns saints are celebrated by a Romeria, a pilgrimage to some holy spot outside the town where people spend their day celebrating in honour of their saint. Colourful gypsy wagons, flamenco dancers and riders in traditional attire parade through the streets, carrying an effegy of the saint in question, singing and passing around flagons of sangria and bottles of fino.

Stalls along the way serve tapas and gradually the whole town moves out to the shrine for a night of barbecues. Vast paellas are cooked over an open fire, flamenco dancing and singing all around. There are firework displays and sometimes funfairs. Everybody dressing up in traditional costume.

The "Feria de Málaga" is the largest and most spectacular of the summer festivals, lasting for 10 days in August, during which time, people come from all over the world to enjoy the theatrical events, traditional dances, funfairs, fireworks, bull fights and folk bands to name just a few of its contents.

Holy week is also a highlight, taken as a serious element by all. Solomn processions with ornate floats, decorated with candles and fresh flowers, depicting scenes from The Passion carried on the shoulders of up to 60 men in hooded outfits, and followed by its congregation, some barefoot or blindfold in sacrifice.

The bull fight is an ancient art steeped in ritual and is recorded as far back as 2000BC. The Visigoths who once inhabited Andalucía practised a primitive form of bullfighting but it was the Moors, almost 3000 years later, who turned the spectacle into an art form. It became more widespread in the 18th century. Love it or hate it, attending a corrida (bullfight) provides a valuble insight into the culture of Andalucía.

A typical corrida involves 3 matadors and six bulls, massive fighting specimens which have been especially breed for their aggression. Each encounter will last about 15 minutes and forms 3 acts. The star of the show is the matador, expensively dressed in his traje de luces (suit of lights), of an intricately emboidered silk jacket, black pants and a montera, a bicorn hat. First the bull is taunted with magenta capes swept in graceful arcs, before the picadores enter the ring mounted on horseback. Their job is to lance the bulls neck and weaken its muscles in prepation for the kill.

Impromptu flamenco under the stars on a hot summes night or a smokey bar in the back streets of Málaga is a primitive and magical experience.

Essentially an outlet for passion and unhappiness, good flamenco is a kind of spiritual bond between musicians, dancer and onlookers. As the raw emotion of the song, the hypnotic hand-clapping and finger-snapping of the audience and the fantastically fast stamping of the dancer build up into a carthartic finale, it is often accompanied by spontaneous shouts of encouragement and emotion.

Strands of culture have come together to form the music but it originates from the gypsies of Sevilla, Cádiz and Jerez in the 19th century who sang mournful laments of lost love and oppression. Elements of the music come from North Africa, India, Greece, Egypt and Pakistan but the result is pure Andalucían.

Flamenco became part of civilized society in the 19th century as a cafe entertainment and its raw intensity was diffused slightly as it began to be integrated into popular folklore music. The Sevillana is one of the most popular forms. This is the only form of flamenco where castanets are used, contrary to popular belief, and elsewhere visitors are expected to join in with hand-clapping and finger-snapping to create staccato counter-rythyms to the drumming of the dancers feet. Male roles have more emphasis on the foot-work, while female dancers demonstrate body and hand movements that are most dramatic and graceful.