Festa de Gracia
This is a small collection of photos and brief comments from the Festa de Gracia in Barcelona: August 15th - 22nd 2005. The full photo sets may be found at the Anulios Flickr Gallery and I will add to these as the Festa continues.
So what is the Gracia festival? Well, basically it is a 24 hour a day party that lasts a whole week. Gracia is one of the last traditional barrios of Barcelona, it is where I live and is a strange mix of old locals, anarchists, young bohemians and odd characters (of which I would probably count as one). The Festival has been going on for 100 years or so and revolves around the communities of every street (or most streets) decorating the road in a certain style or theme. There is a prize but it is more or less always won by one street - Carrer Verdi (who take things very seriously) - and everyone gets together to transform the streets into scenes from hell, heaven, blockbuster movies or mythological motifs depending on whim.
All the inhabitants chip in and food is bought and cooked and eaten in all-day parties (every day) that the residents all turn up to. Beer stalls line the streets and about a million and a half people from other barrios or out of town pour into our small patch and go wild for a week. Needless to say, sleep is almost impossible.
So today, August 15th, is the start of all this. As is our tradition, me and Mrs Segovius went to see the opening celebrations in the main square: Rius I Taulet. These are some pics of the streets we passed on the way - no Verdi yet, will go there tonight and post.
The opening party consists of displays by various Gracia ‘Societies’ which are essentially clubs of a sort. there are many: The Castellers are human tower builders, the Gegants specialise in giant models of humans that they hide inside and manouever through the streets, there are also Morris Dancers and, my personal favourite, a Society of Devils that have one function and one function only: spreading chaos and mayhem through pyrotechnic firework displays that fill the streets with fire and explosions causing serious danger to life and limb.
Actually the whole festival is of great interest to anyone with a bias towards Fortean issues, Paganism or folklore. The Giants are clearly acting out an astrological Sun/Moon cosmological paradigm whilst the figure of Satan is ubiquitous and of course the Devils themselves are the heroes whilst the Church seems conspicuous by its absence. Morris Dancing also plays a large role (unfortunately to my mind) and it is remarkably similar to the English version - both are possibly derived from medieval Sufi movements and the very name ‘Morris’ seems likely to be a corruption of ‘Moorish’.
Here’s some of the dancers, the Sun and Moon Giants and the devils in repose:
Those devils may look harmless but they soon wheel out a couple of dragons which are loaded with high explosives and just in case anyone escapes unscathed the Devils start throwing fireworks into the crowd:
That’s it for now - I have put a few more pics in the Flickr Gallery if anyone’s interested. Will add some more as the days (and nights) progress!
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