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Romeria

Discovering the spirit of Flamenco

By Brendan Sainsbury

It's Sunday on a crisp and pure day in early May and the people from the village of Alcala del Valle are slowly gathering in the main square. Men atop handsome grey horses, an entourage of brightly colored floats, girls and women in gypsy-inspired Flamenco dresses. A strange and indefinable energy wafts faintly through the air as I take my place in the growing procession that snakes its way past the white-washed houses. All around the landscape is punctuated by rugged rocky crags and distant Moorish castles. The Romeria has begun.

For Andalucians spring is a time for celebration and a new-found optimism. By August the land will be parched a dusty shade of yellow and by November a dirtier more indistinguishable brown. But for a few ecstatic weeks in May everything seems to merge colorfully into the vivid shades of a universal whole. Clumps of pink snapdragon flourish by the roadside and fields of sunflowers turn their ripening heads east to catch the bright morning rays. The people around me are animated and jubilant. Up front, a float adorned with the life-sized effigy of a praying virgin shouldered respectfully by a group of strapping volunteers. Behind, everybody else, laughing, dancing, drinking, romancing; hanging onto their good humor in the midst of all the crush and chaos. "Vamos ninos!" cries a young mother up ahead of me as she turns around impatiently, imploring her three young children to walk a little faster, "Vamos a Romeria!"

Translated from Spanish the word Romeria means pilgrimage or trip. In the traditional folklore of Andalucia it is intrinsically linked to the Romeria de Rocio, the self-proclaimed mother of all pilgrimages. Every year in late May up to one million people converge on a large stretch of marshland that surrounds the provincial city of Huelva in the province's western hinterland. The origins of this strange festival are primarily religious - Catholic blended with a smattering of old local pagan beliefs - but the realities of the modern day activities are, as any impartial visitor will quickly discover, a little less sanctimonious.   

Throughout the months of May and June almost every village in Andalucia replicates the wild hysteria of Huelva with music, processions and family reunions - weeks of unofficial debauchery. For me, it seemed like an opportunity too good to miss. Fortuitously I had rented a room in a refurbished farmhouse close to the village of Alcala de Valle, not far from Ronda. Situated picturesquely on the olive-farming slopes of Spain's southern coastal mountains and an equitable one hour drive from Seville, Cordoba and Malaga I couldn't have chosen a more ideal location. I took my chances and followed the crowds.

Two miles out of Alcala the procession nears its final destination and grinds to a halt. The Canos Santos monastery is perched on a small promontory of land that overlooks the lofty and foreboding crags of the Grazalema Mountains. From here the views are spectacular. Gleaming Pueblos Blancos or white towns hug the slopes of distant hillsides and a network of inter-connecting castles dotted along the horizon hark back to the frontier days when this violent land stood on the cusp of two conflicting faiths and ideologies.

Gradually the swaying float is steered down a narrow lane by its exhausted bearers and is led, preceded by a priest, into a large chapel where it is ceremoniously blessed and laid to rest in front an impatient congregation who sit and stand in barely-repressed solemnity. Babies yell and people whisper excitedly as the priest - unconcerned by the interruptions - launches into a long and rousing sermon

Meanwhile outside, in the ruins of the ancient monastery, the dry sherry has already been uncorked and ladies in bright, patterned dresses are getting ready to dance in pairs to the bright repetitive stanzas of Sevillanas. Stalls have been set up and are serving all variety of tapas, horseman gallop in playful competition through the olive groves and up on a raised stage a musical show of soft Spanish laments provides an agreeable background hum.

But, to the experienced eye, this congenial spectacle is merely a prelude, a warm up for the surprises to come.

Quite spontaneously the real show gets underway some time around dusk. It's all fairly innocuous to start with. A few gypsies congregated under an oak tree proceed to tune up their battered guitars and snap rhythmically on some castanets. Groups of families cooking paella around an open fire drift over and form a loose, impromptu audience. Quite detectably there is a whiff of something more potent in the air. Even the Griffin vultures have sensed it, circling in above the ruins of the old monastery, restless after their flights from nests on high and distant crags.

In Flamenco music, the essence comes from within, from some dark recess of the human soul. Wailing Arabic calls, gypsy rhythms, snippets of old Spanish folk songs. The happy and the sad mixing up with the good and the bad, into what Fredrico Lorca once called "the music of hope and despair". And as I drift casually around the food stalls on the periphery, where bright young men and women strut around vying to be seen, I feel the music slowly creeping over me.

It's like a taunt.

I edge closer to the gathering throng and grab a plastic cup of fino seco from an outstretched hand. A lone dancer has emerged from the crowd and is glaring at her new-found audience; a woman - large, aggrieved, clumsy. She looks ridiculous at first - strutting and gyrating her hips like a defiant gypsy princess. It's only when a disheveled old man appears beside her and starts to sing her a sad lament that she goes through a kind of chameleonic transformation.

The Solea or deep song is often considered to be at the heart and soul of Flamenco, the least accessible of the forms to the uninitiated but, at the same time, the most intense and soul-searching. From the initial melancholic opening up until the final frenzied climax the musicians and dancers combine with an almost telepathic understanding and transmit this unique form of explosive energy out into the audience.

In the shadow of the monastery the elusive mood builds up slowly, rising and falling, fast and slow, the dancer's feet slamming down ever harder, the gypsy's fingers driving across the guitar strings with increasing ferocity. Shouts of encouragement came from the crowd, a percussive crescendo, an impossible guitar falseta, voices crying "Ole" and then suddenly it is all over bar the long echo of the final chord and that strange feeling of warmth and vitality that lingers inside of you for days afterwards. 

First-timers might call it a unique musical experience. Aficionados call it the spirit of "Duende".

If You Go:

Visit any Andalucian village in May or June and it is likely you'll stumble upon a Romeria. The festival in Alcala de Valle usually takes place during the first week in May.

Other main events are listed on www.andalucia.com.

The author stayed at the Cortijo Rosario in the village of Algamitas, Seville province, and booked through Exodus holidays. - www.exodus.co.uk

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