All countries have a series of topics that give us an exterior image, ours is “bullfights and flamenco dancing”. Spain is quite a large country, large enough to hold important differences in cultures. In our region, Catalonia, we do not dance flamenco but the Sardana. We neither do bullfighting, but this is another matter....
The Sardana is a popular Catalan dance and is the traditional dance of Catalonia. It’s danced in a circle fitting rhythm and dynamics to the music of a “cobla” (a “cobla” is a popular Catalonian instrumental group of between ten and thirteen people that basically play wind instruments, but also percussion and string.) The first written references of the “Sardana” remount to 1552 although it’s origin is imprecise.
An undetermined amount of dancers hold hands forming a circle, facing the centre, dancing in circles to the right and to the left. The components should preferably be couples of men and women, however just two people holding hands is enough to consider a “rotlanna”, circle, formed. The “Sardana” is not an excluding dance so any individual or couple can join the circle at any stage of the dance.
The music of the Sardana is played by a “cobla”, which generally consists of eleven musicians playing twelve instruments.
The “Sardana” was temporarily banned during Franco’s dictatorship as a national symbol.
Normally “Sardana’s are danced in the Church, village, or Town Hall Square’s of the Catalan Villages and towns, usually on the mornings of holidays or any normal Sunday.
Torroella de Montgrí, neighbouring village to l’Estartit, is traditionally a reference point to the Sardana, throughout Catalonia, having been the hometown of many renown compositors.
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