La Noche de San Juan

Tuesday I started my FLAMENCO DANCE COURSE!!! There are tons of different styles of Flamenco, including Tango, Fandango, Siguiriya, and the one I’m learning, Alegría (a Solea). These are based on the rhythyms, tempos and mood of the music. There are 3 other girls in my class, 2 Spanish and 1 Chinese. One of the Spanish girls, Lola, was one of my teachers at Castila, and we immediately clicked as friends. The style of this dance class is slightly different to all the others I’ve ever taken. There’s less “showing what to do” from the instructor and more of a “just try to keep up” vibe. Crazy at first, but I picked up quickly. ish. I am looking forward to my second class today. Interesting fact: my flamenco shoes are like tap shoes but instead of two flat metal pieces on the bottom, there is a cluster of nail heads both at the heel and the toe of the foot.

Tuesday was also La Noche de San Juan, an annual Spanish holiday basically celebrating summer and the shortest night of the year. Every year there are massive bonfire parties and concerts all along the coast, and a few famous ones inland. One of these is the Fiesta de Agua in a pueblo called Lanjaron. This pueblo (not far from Granada) is famous for it’s bottled water, some of the most common to be found all over Spain. On this day the entire town carries around buckets, hoses and waterguns, and starting at midnight a gargantuous waterfight commences. We opted to skip this and go to one of the beach parties in Motril. (Coast of Granada, next to Salobreña). The 6 of us ended up arriving around 10:30, early by Spanish standards, and sat ourselves on blankets near the bonfire. There were hundreds of people already there with bbq pits, drinks, and random flamenco singing. After about an hour we noticed a huge crowd of people near some music and discovered it was a FOAM party! We of course jumped right in. This was the “seems like a good idea” of the night- When we finally left the dancing soapy mob and rinsed off it was absolutely freezing! Then some fireworks started going off and we realized that Angel’s dog, Gusana, was nowhere to be found. We ended up spending the rest of the night looking for her, only to take a short nap near the bonfire before Angel had to drive back to work. His sister finally found Gusana around 9 a.m., much to everyone’s relief. Despite the dog-scare, it was a really interesting experience, and very cool to watch the fires all along the coast and the fireworks over the Mediterranean. (pictured: Marina and I in the foam, Angel and I post-foam, and the beach we were on in Motril, minus the bonfire).

SABES QUE…
Castanets are not part of true flamenco, they are an element that has been added in recent years to enhance the finger snapping.