Valencia, (EFE) on Sunday night, when they go up in flames:
1. Municipal Failure
For the first time, a woman (Marina Puche, belonging to a saga of fallas artists) has designed the falla paid for by the City Council and is out of competition, “Valencian Cardioversió”, which with a budget of 217,300 euros and a height of 21 meters it represents an immense heart that beats and lights up with those natural, family, gastronomic or Mediterranean sensations and emotions that surround it. Mandatory stop at the “zero kilometer” of the Fallas.
2. Convent Jerusalem-Mathematician Marzal
After winning the throne of Especial in three of the last four years, this commission is on a roll and its artist, Pere Baenas, is looking for the poker of aces: “For a Fistful of Euros” has the record budget for this year’s fallas ( 255,000 euros) and honors, via the Wild West, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to satirize politicians and leaders with scathing criticism, all wrapped up in an endless volume of ninots of Indian chiefs and cowboys, horses and even a stagecoach suspended in the air.
3. On Jordan
Mario Gual signs “Clover Earth. Terra d’esperança, fe, amor i sort”, a high-flying fault in the Carmen neighborhood, already on the edge of the historic center, which at a cost of 150,000 euros builds a gigantic and colorful tree kingdom where everything from fantastic animals to fairies, mythological characters and goblins that flow with dreamlike landscapes but where a casino also sneaks in.
4. Admiral Cadarso-Conde Altea
A musical show for visual enjoyment that Toni Pérez, with a budget of 140,000 euros, puts up to review, in the key of biting satire, all the melodies that come from politicians, young people, businessmen, athletes and managers with current issues such as the energy crisis , inflation, doping and promiscuity. All this, framed by an immense slouched king who surrounds himself with buffoons and muses under the motto “Don’t let the music stop”.
5. Plaza del Pilar
“We will survive (si ens deixen)” is the title of one of the fallas that never fail, that of Pilar, in one of the key squares of the world of fallas as it is the perfect space for projects as voluminous as the one signed this year Paco Torres, who has had 170,000 euros to build an endless number of scenes recharged to the limit and where they fit from the Japanese theater to demons and grim reapers. In this way, fears and human miseries are faced with the hopes and illusions of surviving with family, innocence and love.
6. Swedish-literate Azorín
Crises and their opportunities are the leitmotif of “Asia… on anem?”, the work of Pedro Santaeulalia that, with an investment of 140,000 euros, proudly exhibits in the heart of the Ruzafa neighborhood -almost a “ground zero” failing in itself- a review of current issues under the gaze of a huge Chinese family and their particular universe of traditions, wisdom, color, lanterns, masks, exotic fish and panda bears.
7. The Old Bell Tower
Women and color are the main protagonists of the falla designed by the artist Carlos Carsí with a budget of 170,000 euros in the Special Commission furthest from the center of Valencia. “Som de colors” has as its central axis four huge women, serene and quiet, with all their nuances and not only chromatic, to portray a palette of tones where earthly and mundane affairs fit together with fantastic figures and dreamlike recreations. In addition, the public has pardoned his ninot “La pyrotechnics”.
8. Exhibition-Micer Mascó
Attached to the Mestalla stadium, “Kromátika” is the work of David Sánchez, who, after an investment of 160,000 euros, also uses color to symbolize an immense chromatic avalanche of muses and gods to color an enormous mythological figure. But it is only the argument to, at the base, criticize what colors some remain according to what situations, from Putin (in a hellish red next to the devil) to the victims of the crisis (black), the press (yellow) or show business (pink).
9. Kingdom of Valencia-Duke of Calabria
Again in Ruzafa (where there is also the falla of Especial de Cuba-Literato Azorín with the motto “Life”), “Call it love, call it X” will accumulate many visits and publications on social networks for its picturesque portrait of love and sex in exotic key, with the Kamasutra as the central axis and humor as the guiding thread of a cartoonish monument where the artist Jorge Musoles has had the lowest budget in the Special section, 92,000 euros.
10. Children’s Municipal Failure
One more year, the tandem of fallas artists José Luis Ceballos-Paco Sanabria leaves the thousands of people who pass through the Plaza del Ayuntamiento open-mouthed. For this occasion they have focused (with a municipal budget of 30,210 euros, out of competition like her older sister, the giant heart of Marina Puche and the artist Manolo García) on the traditional dances of the Valencian Community, a work full of affection and optimism towards ritual dances, religious dances, village celebrations, costumes, castles and castanets, all in perfect harmony.