Folk Dancing at the Silk Museum
Yesterday the silk museum in El Paso held an open day, with a performance by the folk group Cumbre Nueva I’m having a technical problem with editing the video, but here’s some photos of the performance. .
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Nativity Scenes in the Canaries
Christmas trees are a newish thing here, although probably most houses have one now. The main traditional decoration is nativity scenes. Some just show the stable, but some public ones are so elaborate that they include the whole village, and it’s always a Canarian village. Obviously that’s historically inaccurate, but no more so than all the English nativity scenes where Mary and Jesus are blond. This one was on display…
Folk Music for Canary Day
Like everywhere else, the Canaries have their own folk music, and no, it’s not “The Birdie Song.” The group Alfaguara will be performing folk music and dancing in traditional costumes on Saturday night, the 29th of May, in the car park in Cancajos. (Presumably, this means the big one at the north end of the village, opposite the Centro Cancajos.) And Barlovento has a fiesta, also this weekend. I haven’t…
The Kings are Coming to La Palma!
Although Father Christmas does visit Spanish children, he’s a new arrival. Traditionally the presents arrive on the morning of January 6th, when the three kings visit baby Jesus. This is why the sales haven’t really started yet – Christmas isn’t over here. And on the evening of the 5th, they ride in procession through most of the major towns and villages in Spain. In previous years we’ve usually gone to…
Fiestas in Early September
There are two nice fiestas coming up at the beginning of September. In El Paso, the statue of the Virgin of the Pine was carried in procession from the hermitage up in the mountain down to the village. On September 6th, there will be another procession to carry it back. The Devil’s dance, Tijarafe, 2007. In Tijarafe in the early hours of September 8th, the devil will join the dance….
Carnival Murgas
What are murgas when they’re at home? Well, they’re not murgas. They have to go out to do that. And they usually go out during Carnival. A murga is a large, costumed choir singing a medley of popular tunes with their own lyrics. The costumes can be quite elaborate, and run from clowns, demons, big, hairy blokes dressed as schoolgirls, Arabian princes, or fairies (usually the big, hairy blokes again.)…