Hotel Astoria Palace, Valencia, 19th March 2006
We are here for the Las Fallas festival. Its origins lie in a carpenters’ tradition, from the Middle Ages, celebrating the spring equinox on 19th March by burning the pieces of wood, parots, which were used to prop up their lights during the winter. Through the influence of the church the date of the pagan-rooted burning was made to coincide with the celebration of the festival of Saint Joseph, the patron saint of carpenters. The parots have evolved into ninots, giant elaborate cartoonish figurative sculptures that fill the streets with combined art and satire. Built throughout the year with enormous care and attention to detail, all must be burned on the night of the 19th.
Before the burning, the Cavalcada del Foc, Fire Parade, turns the Calle Colon into an inferno symbolic of the fiesta’s spirit, a celebration of fire. We stood on the pavement in the dark wrapped against the cold; indulgent parents watched as squealing children threw fire crackers into the road. Flickering lights approached and a drum beat swelled in an ominous sense of pagan mystery. Intimidating white-faced figures in black, red and gold and mitre-like headdresses danced by to a rhythm of drums and pipes (doncaina i tabal) and chanting recalling Moorish Spain – harbingers of ancient rites, of fire, of demons, of the night. The tail of a silver bird burst into a fan of fire and sparks; a golden dragon capered by and breathed fire over the crowd; jugglers tossed and twirled flaming crosses of exploding fireworks that rained flickering light on us; modern retiarii capered past their tridents spitting fire; red demons and green jesters brandished fire sticks and roman candles. Bejeweled Fallas Queens rode past accompanied by an endless retinue of attendants richly appareled in lace, velvet and brocade. Smoke and the acrid fumes of sulphur and gunpowder filled the air – a whiff of the Inquisition, of the Catholic, superstitious, side of the Spanish temper.