(Edited from Wikipedia with personal observaitons added.)
Background
Background
Falles (Valencian)/Fallas (Spanish) - pronounced, "FI-es"/"FI-as" - is a traditional celebration held in commemoration of Saint Joseph in Valencia. The term Falles refers to both the celebration and the monuments created during the celebration. A number of towns in the Valencian Community have similar celebrations inspired by the original Fallas de Valencia celebration. Each neighborhood of the city has an organized group of people, the Casal faller, that works all year long holding fundraising parties and dinners, usually featuring the famous dish, paella, a specialty of the region. Each casal faller produces a construction known as a falles which is eventually burnt. A casal faller is also known as a comissió fallera.
History
There are different speculations regarding the origin of the Falles festival. One suggests that the Falles started in the Middle Ages, when artisans disposed of the broken artifacts and pieces of wood they saved during the winter by burning them to celebrate the spring equinox. Valencian carpenters used planks of wood called parots to hang their candles on during the winter, as these were needed to provide light to work by. With the coming of the spring, they were no longer necessary, so they were burned. Over time, and with the intervention of the Church, the date of the burning of these parots was made to coincide with the celebration of the festival of Saint Joseph, the patron saint of carpenters.
This tradition continued to evolve. The parot was dressed with clothing so that it looked like a person; features identifiable with some well-known person from the neighborhood were often added as well. To collect these materials, children went from house to house asking for una estoreta velleta (an old rug) to add to the parot. This became a popular song that the children sang as they gathered all sorts of old flammable furniture and utensils to burn in the bonfire with the parot. These parots were the first ninots. With time, people of the neighborhoods organized the building of the falles and the typically intricate constructions, including their various figures, were born.
Here, crews of artists and artisans, sculptors, painters, and many others all spend months producing elaborate constructions of paper and wax, wood and styrofoam tableaux towering up to five stories, composed of fanciful figures in outrageous poses arranged in gravity-defying architecture. Each of them is produced at the direction of one of the many individual neighbourhood Casals fallers who vie with each other to attract the best artists, and then to create the most outrageous monument to their target. There are more than 500 different falles in Valencia, including those of other towns in the Valencian Community.
Events
The timing of the events is fixed and they fall on the same dates every year, March 15-19.
La Despertà
Each day of Falles begins at 8:00 am with La Despertà ("the wake-up call"). Brass bands appear from the casals and begin to march down every street playing lively music. Close behind them are the fallers, throwing large firecrackers in the street as they go.
La Mascletà
The Mascletà, an explosive barrage of coordinated firecracker and fireworks displays, takes place in each neighbourhood at 2:00 pm every day of the festival; the main event is the municipal Mascletà in the Plaça de l'Ajuntament where the pyrotechnicians compete for the honor of providing the final Mascletà of the fiestas (on 19 March). At 2:00 pm the clock chimes and the Fallera Mayor (dressed in her fallera finery) will call from the balcony of City Hall, Senyor pirotècnic, pot començar la mascletà! ("Mr. Pyrotechnic, you may commence the Mascletà!"), and the Mascletà begins.
La Plantà
The day of the 15th all of the falles infantils are to be finished being constructed and later that night all of the falles majors (major Falles) are to be completed. If not, they face disqualification.
L'Ofrena de flors
In this event, the flower offering, each falla casal takes an offering of flowers to the Virgin Mary as Our Lady of the Abandoned. This occurs all day during 17–18 March (starting in the early afternoon and continuing almost to midnight). A statue of the Virgin Mary and its large pedestal are then covered with all the flowers.
Els Castells and La Nit del Foc
On the nights of the 15, 16, 17, and 18th there are firework displays in the old riverbed in Valencia. Each night is progressively grander and the last is called La Nit del Foc (the Night of Fire).
Cabalgata del Fuego
On the final evening of Falles, at 7pm on March 19, a parade known in Spanish as the Cabalgata del Fuego (the Fire Parade) takes place along Colon street (leading to) Porta de la Mar square. This spectacular celebration of fire, the symbol of the fiesta’s spirit, is the grand finale of Falles and a colourful, noisy event featuring exhibitions of the varied rites and displays from around the world which use fire; it incorporates floats, giant mechanisms, people in costumes, rockets, gunpowder, street performances and music. (Canceled this year due to high winds.)
La Cremà
On the final night of Falles, around midnight on March 19, all of the falles are burnt as huge bonfires. This is known as La Cremà (the Burning), the climax of the whole event, and the reason why the constructions are called falles ("torches"). Traditionally, the falle in the Plaça de l'Ajuntament (the town center) is burned last around 1:30 A.M. Many neighbourhoods have a falla infantil, a children's falla, smaller and without satirical themes, which is held a few metres away from the main one. This is burnt first, at 10:00 P.M.
(The rest are ostensibly burned around midnight. The fire department sends teams to each falle to supervise the burning and it is clear that they cannot be everywhere at once. In my barrio, the falle was not ignited until around 2:30 A.M. A large contingent of the neighborhood residents, including their young children, waited patiently for the denouement.)
Each falle is laden with fireworks which are lit first. The construction itself is lit either after or during the explosion of these fireworks. Falles burn quite quickly, and the heat given off is felt by all around. The heat from the larger ones often drives the crowd back a couple of metres, even though they are already behind barriers that the fire brigade has set several metres from the construction. In narrower streets, the heat scorches the surrounding buildings, and the firemen douse the façades, window blinds, street signs, etc. with their hoses to stop them catching fire or melting, from the beginning of the cremà until it cools down.
Away from the falles, people frolic in the streets, the whole city resembling an open-air dance party, except that instead of music there is the incessant (and occasionally deafening) sound of people throwing fireworks around randomly. There are stalls selling products such as the typical fried snacks porres, xurros and bunyols, as well as roasted chestnuts or trinkets.
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On the “Day of Crida,” the last Sunday in February, Valencia’s mayor, Rita Barberá, announces to an enormous waiting crowd, “ya estem en Falles.” Translation from the Valencian: “We are now in Falles.” With this, the city is transformed. Join in the festivities. Remember though, the falles you see here have already disappeared, gone up in smoke. The centuries-old tradition continues.
La Mascletà
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| (Photo by others.) |
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| (Photo by others.) |
LAS FALLES:
Traditional/Whimsical
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This year's Grand Prize winner.
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| Crowds thronging the small square where this year's winning falles is located. |
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An homage to Hollywood.
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| Umm...A little "profiling" here of the artist? |
LAS FALLES:
The Contemporary
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| What is silence? The word that has no voice. |
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La Falles Especial de Nou Campanar
Las Falles are artistic monuments that are usually surrounded by fences to prevent damage. As if it were museum pieces placed in a street cabinet: "See but do not touch". , with a budget of 90,000 euros, has opted to break the dynamic and allow visitors to interact with the monument. The observer as a protagonist. The construction of the Falles of Campanar Nou, led by architect Miguel Arraiz and the artist David Moreno, (unlike other falles) has been kept secret…
It is no coincidence that this “participatory Falles” is called Ekklesia, the name of the most important assembly of Athenian democracy in Ancient Greece. (At) this assembly, which met once a year, the Greek people wrote the name of political or other persons to be expelled ten years from the Polis for being annoying to society. "An act of actively improving democracy by the citizenry, once a year, scrubbed politicians and did not need to wait for the next election," explains architect, Miguel Arraiz.
The architect jokes even with the controversy that has arisen in social networks around it: "Many insisted indignantly that it was a falles made of iron." Nothing could be further from the truth: it is made exclusively of cardboard and wood, as has always been done, but avoiding polluting materials such as Styrofoam.Despite criticism, Arraiz notes that, in materials, "this Falles is more traditional than any other".
The building sits on a floor that is a mosaic of 96,000 pieces. In its manufacture attended by about 300 people of various kinds: the neighborhood association and kids in community centers in the neighborhood of Campanar or the Colonia San Vicente Ferrer de Godella, thanks to an agreement with the Department of Social Welfare. In addition, it recreates the typical mosaic Nolla since disappeared, with the aim "to value the Valencian heritage".
A trendy falles, built on the pattern of citizen participation. "Ten years ago would not have been possible," says Miguel Arraiz.
NOTE: As the fates would have it, this Falles was reported to be demolished by wind on March 19. When I visited the day before, officials were just beginning to prevent visitors from walking through the structure that was already exhibiting signs of deflection in the bad weather. Whether the debris was burned is unclear.
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L'Ofrena de flors
The Dress/The People
Casal faller
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| A meeting place of one neighborhood group. |
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| Paella, cooking in the street, made by neighborhood members. There were a half-dozen of these scattered along a city block. |
The Festival's Urban Landscape at Night
La Cremà
A Few Days Later
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