People dancing a sardana in la Bisbal de l'EmpordĂ 's town square, Catalonia. Video by Amics de la Sardana Terranostra.
This is sardana, a type of music and dance from Catalonia often considered Catalonia's national dance.
The music for the sardanes is always played by a cobla, a specific music ensamble consisting of 11 musicians playing 12 instruments with a predominance of wind instruments.
There are many songs of the sardana genre, all of which share the same beat. For this reason, the same handful of dance steps can be used for all songs. The dance is easy on purpose, so that everyone can join. It consists of two basic steps called the âshort stepâ and the âlong stepâ, and itâs always danced in circle holding hands.
The circle represents friendship, harmony, fraternity and solidarity among everyone who joins to hold hands.
People dancing sardanes in Northern Catalonia. Photos from the article âSardane, une ronde fraternelle en Pays Catalanâ by BĂ©atrice Bantegny on Visit PO.
In the late 19th century, authorities (government and religious) condemned the sardana for being immoral because it meant that men and women who arenât relatives were holding hands, but it was too popular to control it. During Francoâs fascist dictatorship of Spain (1939-1978), some sardana songs were banned because they were considered too Catalan (one of the pillars of Spanish fascism was/is Catalanophobia, the dictatorship wanted to exterminate the Catalan language, culture, and identity and impose the Spanish one instead).
But sardanes kept being danced through all of it and nowadays you can still find that a cobla plays in most towns during its local festivities, and everyone can join and dance. Though in most of Catalonia this dance is now associated with elderly people, in the Comarques Gironines it's particularly beloved. In the EmpordĂ area, you can often find it in summer evenings.
