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The Fallas Festival
“It is the perfect annual occasion to show people around the world our city and culture” Spanish actress, Iris Lezcano on the Fallas festival.
The festival, that ignites her home town of Valencia on an annual basis sparked off in mid March. In brief, the “celebration of art makes up of sculptures that reflect social problems, long nights of fire and above all, fiesta”, reveals Lezcano with a smile. “I think it is beautiful”, she adds, “we burn the big huge monuments on the final night- something that gives new hope and energy to the people to follow their personal proposals”.
To many, the fact that the paper-maché protagonists of the popular festival should be burned seems bizarre, but like most Spanish fiestas, there is a traditional tale behind it. And in the case of the Fallas, the tale dates back to patron Saint of the carpenters, Saint Joseph. “The bonfires are our way of saying goodbye to the winter and welcoming the summer”, says Eugenio Chillida, radio journalist and native of Valencia, “this way, we scare away the evil spirits”.
According to Thinkspain.com, the Fallas came about in the middle of the 18th century and began on the eve of St Joseph's Day (March 19). Rag dolls called peleles were hung from windows along with monuments and figures that reflected an event or an individual in the public eye. People then proceeded to collect various objects and junk to burn on bonfires called fallas.
Today, the Fallas is a unique affair that lights up Valencia with 776 monuments, fireworks display, music, artistic lightening and parades for a whole week long. The climax comes at midnight on Friday (March 19) when most of the monuments (ninots) are burnt in an immense display, mercy being shown only to the best, that are then saved for a special exhibition.
“There is no doubt that the Fallas festival is a peculiar event”, says Chillida, as he takes out some photos of the 'falleros'- men and women who dress up in traditional, eye-catching costumes throughout the whole event despite the stifling heat. “It does however contain important elements for a culture and leisure holiday, something that really appeals to both the locals and tourists”.
Such an extravagant event does however come with a price and the creation of one of these huge cardboard, wood, paper-maché, plaster statues can cost from anything up to 900,000 euro to make, and thats on an average year. This year however, due to the grave recession in Spain, the highest was made for just 600,000 euro. Fundraising takes place all year through parties and outdoor dinner parties in different neighbourhoods around the city to gather the cash. Local businesses to do their bit too by investing in advertising.
It is probably just want the quiet city of Valencia with its population of one million needed to help them out within their high unemployment rate. As besides the burning of the ninots, visitors are entertained by nonstop events and services from bullfights to paella making contests. And complementing the sporadic fireworks displays is the mascletá, a daily show that takes place at 2pm on the Town Hall square - in brief, it is a celebration of thunderous noise that is created when firecrackers are set off by trained firemen from the locality.
The Valencian ground has however been shaken sufficiently for 2010, so in order to watch the caricature of President Sarkozy and his lady Bruni be burnt through a public display, we will have to wait till next March. For the moment, the only left hanging over the blue Valencian sky is a dark cloud of smoke and a smell of churros (Spanish doughnuts). Locals are still hibernating in a well deserved siesta.
Source image: falles.mforos.com