Anguiano, (EFE).- Eight dancers revived the ancestral tradition of throwing themselves down a cobbled slope and stairs, in Anguiano, to honor Santa María Magdalena, in a rite that combines color, courage and cold blood, with hundreds of people crowded around the protagonists of the exhibition of “human spinning tops”.
The sun has accompanied the entire event and has allowed the vibrant colors of the dancers’ costumes to shine in a special way among the crowd that wrapped them up and cheered them on as they jumped down the slope on their wooden stilts, almost half a meter high, configuring a ritual that has ended without notable incidents other than a fall.
There are no precise indications of the origin of this rite, of which there are written testimonies from 1603; Some theories focus on the pagan elements of the tradition, such as the yellow and orange dress that could refer to the sun, as well as the twists, as a way of giving thanks to the sun for the crops; Others allude to how stilts were used to walk in the snow in this area of the La Rioja mountains.
In any case, Anguiano and La Rioja have turned this colorful tradition into an internationally known sign of identity, in which to the sound of traditional music the dancers turn over and over again while hundreds of people follow their evolution and prevent them from hitting their bones on the cobbled floor.
This day of Santa María Magdalena, patron saint of this town in La Rioja, began, as every year, with parades, a procession and a mass, after which the dancers went up a steep slope full of people waiting to see them dance live again.
In an energetic and uninterrupted way, the eight dancers have twirled down the stairs dressed in a high-flying yellow skirt and a colorful bodice while playing castanets to the sound of dulzainas and drums, trusting that the public could help to stop them at the end of the slope, as they have been.
The part of the dancers’ costumes that always attracts the most attention from the public, together with the colorful skirt flying around the turns, are their dizzying 50-centimetre stilts, plus the spike, made of beech wood in Nájera.
the final dance
One of these dancers has already announced that he will “hang up” his stilts after this year, it is Daniel Sáenz, who, after 16 years of throwing himself down the slope, will leave his place in the formation for the new generations after the laps that will also take place next September.
Sáenz (Logroño, 1991) has explained to EFE that he makes this decision because “you have to make way for young girls to dance” and, although he does not yet have a successor, “there is a quarry” of new dancers who can take his place in the formation of eight starters.
“It’s a unique tradition, my grandfather did it, my uncle did it… so, the truth has always been special, but in these previous days, as I’m talking to more journalists, it plays a little more because you remember everything you’ve done over the years”, indicated this dancer, who to end his journey as such has starred in one of the day’s falls onto the cobblestones, although without consequences.
He has highlighted that the best thing about having participated in this activity for more than a decade is having been able to “collaborate in some way so that the tradition continues to be alive and people continue to enjoy it. In the end, you feel privileged for having experienced all this”.